4 réponses à ce sujet

[frag971]

[DISCLAIMER: this is a faily long post, please don't assume things and coment without reading, this is probably not about what you think]
There are topics that are still considered by many as taboo. Now i'm not sure if i'm breaking any forum rules here but i wanted to provide a mature conversation on serious things. Things like:

-Racism, speciecism and any forms of extreme discrimination. These issues we actually tackled in Dragon Age and i would love to see a continuation, perhaps an evolution on the state of the world since then. Maybe even have an "I have a dream!" moment in the game to adress discrimination in the world of DA3.

-Rape, particularly female, such as what happens to woman in war. It is a terrible thing to happen but one must realise this is a fairly common occurance in many wars throughout our history. Exploring this venue to tell a story about the human condition. Not everything should be about "heroic" or "happy love". I'm not saying there should be an actual rape scene in the game (God forbid), but definetly as a plot point - such as having it happening to a party member and how the player character interacts with him/her before and after it happened would be very interesting.

-Torture, both physical, mental and spiritual. Actually show someone break under torture. This was exemplified in Mass Effect series with Saren and Cerberus experimenting on people. A new dimension to it in DA3 could be explored in the mental and spiritual sides, such as having the player's body posessed and witness terrible things happening and everyone else thinks it was the player character that did it.

-Male castration, usually as a form of punishment, torture or simply sadism. Similar to the situation above. This issue is somehow adressed in Game of Thrones and a similar topic could exist in DA3.

-Indoctrination - this idea came out from the Mass Effect series and having this implemented in the game as a major storyline plotline/subplot. Imagine close to the end of the game you find out you were being manipulated (mindfooked) throughout the game and having the player believe all their actions were actually the righteous ones. Like only at the second act or close to the end you have "Teh Serious Talk" and you, both the player and character, realise you've been "the evil guy" all along. Plot twist!

-Female and sexual minorities point of view - lets be honest here: most games are targetted at heterosexual males. I would love to see a balance of viewpoints throughout the game. No need to make lots of explosions, breasts, skin-tight jumpsuits and stuff like that. Make a couple decent, attractive male characters, a gay man, etc... And please don't shove it in ("i am gay, i am also politically correct"), do it natural. Gays are normal people like everyone else, i realy liked how Cortez on Mass Effect 3 turned out. Give the girls something to squeel about (cute adorable guy/hot manly guy), put game mechanics interesting to girls, tho i can't speculate here, im a guy .

Basicly what i'm saying is that Bioware has it's momentum and reputation on moving video games as a medium forward. To be serious about it, to be honest about it. Do it because it is important to tell a story with it, it is important to say something about the human condition, to deliver a message on what the world is and perhaps teach is how to make it better, show that there can be a better future, better than what it is. By tackling dificult issues in a movie, in a book, in a song or in a game we can better outselves as human beings.

Games right now are "below" other forms of medium. Nowadays cinema, music and books are considered mature forms of entertainment and education while games are still stigmatised as "for kids" or being stereotyped as the "world of warcraft nerd", "call of duty teenage killer" or "dance studios on Wii". I understand such content will make headlines, like "lesbian sex" did back in Mass Effect. But that was a good thing. It raises awareness, it raises understanding. I'm not saying we should do these things just to generate buzz or headlines but we must stand tall and grow as a medium.

Modifié par frag971, 24 novembre 2012 - 05:24 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I hesitate to usually jump into threads like this, but in the efforts to keep it from completely devolving, there is one thing that immediately jumped out at me.

Rape, particularly female

Emphasis mine.

Why "particularly female?" Rape towarsd men or women is horrific. I personally think it'd be much more interesting, if we were to touch on a subject like this and try to explore it in a mature and unique way, would be to explore it from a perspective of a male that is the victim. In fact, a not insignificant part of me would like to see this avenue only explored towards a male PC. Mostly just as a personal experiment to see how much people truly want to explore these types of dark themes, and what it's like to be a victim and to be powerless to do anything about it (i.e. the opportunity for revenge just never happens). The cynic in me, however, suspects that this would not be as well received.

It's also important to note that Thedas isn't reality. Hoping for difficult topics to happen, with an emphasis on them happening to commonly victimized groups in real life isn't necessary.


Regarding difficult topics in general (and I assume by difficult, you mean topics that make people feel uncomfortable), I do think the Dragon Age games do try to incorporate stuff like this. I do like the ideas of ethical dilemmas, where choices are presented as being less than ideal with justifications being a part of the decision making process. Like the idea of exposing a powerful mage for the crimes he has done, but knowing that in doing so the law will crack down on all mages and there will likely be innocent victims as a result.

If we can make the player stop and think, I think we've done well. But the idea of putting in these uncomfortable topics is something that must be done with care, and definitely not included just for the sake of including it.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think the biggest barrier to something like that is that I can't possibly imagine what it would be like to write a character like that.

If we try it, and get it wrong, all we have done is exceptionally offend those that have been through it.


When I was 13 I lost my brother, and one of the most aggravating comments in the aftermath is when someone, in good faith and with compassionate intent, would give any indication that they knew how I was feeling.

I definitely do feel that I (even as someone that isn't a writer) could accurately and appropriately create reactions for a character that loses a sibling. If I were to write dialogue for someone that is a victim of something like rape, my responses end up becoming "a non-rape victims impressions and assumptions about what it must be like to be a rape victim."


This is why I love that our writing team has so many women on it. That way female perspective is not written from a man that has an idea for what the female perspective might be, but includes females that genuinely have a female perspective.

[Allan Schumacher]

It is a good thought experiment just from a game design perspective though, we hear so much (even on the BSN) about gamers wanting 'maturity', or 'dark' material - but how far does that extend? Would people want it to happen to their character, since that's probably the most direct and confronting way to present the material? Do they understand what that would entail, from a storytelling and presentation perspective?

Agreed, it mostly is just a thought experiment. It's just that in my experiences if I see a thread bring up the idea of mature themes, it likely means "uncomfortable themes" and will almost undoubtedly include topics like rape, incest, and torture.

I remember Dan O'Bannon talking about how part of the reason why Alien is so terrifying is that it's essentially interspecies rape. That it includes "homosexual oral rape" is another great way to make male viewers uncomfortable as well. Extending to this, I'm curious how well people that want to explore darker themes would really still be interested in it if it was their player that became the victim.

[Allan Schumacher]

This thread is being closed now.

It's a touchy enough subject as is and if you want to make something mature, it doesn't need to be dark.