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[InfinitePaths]

 It is so wierd that in DA2 Merill and Fenris showed no real indication that their sexuality is bisexual if they did not romance Hawke.It is so weird that Merill only has a sexual interest in female hawke and no other female charather in the enitre game.if you are going to make all companions have a bisexual sexuallity make them express it,their sexuallity is a part of their personallity.Also I think only Isabella had special dialouge with Fem Hawke,saying stuff like girly fun etc... plus she already said that she is BI,this makes her relationship with a femHawke seem real,consistent and just great.Merill treats Fem Hawke like male Hawke,she also never said that she has an interest in girls,making it so strange and doesn't feel right.

Modifié par HeriocGreyWarden, 20 mars 2013 - 12:26 .

[David Gaider]

I'll just quote the last time I addressed this topic, on my blog. It addresses more than the OP was aiming for, but I imagine-- without reading this thread-- that the posts which followed have already run the usual gamut of opinions anyhow.

Quite frequently on our forums someone will come along with a rant on how they hated how "all the followers in DA2 were bisexual". Sometimes you'll even get someone who counters that by saying, no, they weren't bisexual... the same-gender romance options were gay and the opposite-gender romance options were straight, depending on your player character. Most of the ire seems to center on the fact that Anders not only flirts with you if you pick the nice response options after his plot (how ghastly of him) but that the only way to turn him down is perceived as being harsh... which I don't really think it is, but the bigger crime is evidently that he doesn't like it and you get 10 whole Rivalry points for doing so. This is, as near as I can tell, the equivalent of kicking him in the head (despite the fact that you can get Anders to max Friendship in Act 1 alone about twice over, if you're keen to) and thus inexcusable.

Now, there are three things about this that bother me.

One, the double standard. I suppose in the future we should just suck up the fact that men hitting on men causes a lot more squick than women hitting on women... because nobody brings up Isabela hitting on female players without being flirted with first, only Anders. And those are the only two romance characters who do it. We talked about it and thought, "Why not? Seems fair." The reactions have sometimes been pretty funny, but overall probably not worth the trouble.

Two, that the perception of sexuality evidently dictates the reality. If a male character comments that a woman is attractive, for instance, he must immediately say that he also finds men attractive or he is Straight Forever and any future attraction to men is a ret-con of his character. He has become someone else completely, like he's had a personality transplant. Indeed, some of the comments make me wonder if this is how these people would respond to the same situation in real life... some friend of theirs who they always thought was straight tells them they slept with someone of the same gender and they go, "What? You're like some completely different person! How can you be both straight and gay, it makes no sense!" Probably.

Which leads me to my third thing: while I get that some people might not like the discovery that those followers can potentially romance either gender (something you can really only discover on subsequent playthroughs or by reading about it), a lot of the things people post on the subject is... awkward. "It makes the characters inconsistent." Meaning that... bisexuality itself is indicative of inconsistency? Only people who can't make up their minds are bisexual? "It's unrealistic that everyone is bisexual!" Which 'everyone'? Everyone in Thedas? Or are
we talking four people in your party of folks who already exceptional in a large number of ways, two of which have no sexual past or preferences that they even discuss with you? "It just made them seem like they were all sexually available to me!" So... was it having three romance options for any PC gender, just like in Origins, that threw you off? Or does the idea of potentially sleeping with either gender just make them seem inherently wanton to you?

I mean, come on. I'm sure not everyone actually feels this way, or means to sound as if they do, but much of the commentary on the topic seems to say way more about the commenter than the topic.

While some people evidently didn't like having their perceptions played with, it was indeed just their perception. We wrote the characters the exact same way, all that changed was what you were exposed to. Even, yes, Anders. He did not suddenly become bisexual in DA2 compared to Awakening. I wrote him in Awakening. I remember the conversation when I first saw Anders' planned appearance in the expansion.

"Huh. He looks a little gay."

"I don't think you can use that as an adjective."

"I can if I mean homosexual."

"Really? Is it the hair? The earring?"

"I'm not sure, but he pings like an aircraft carrier."

We laughed about it, and while it didn't really matter for Awakening since there were no romance plots there anyhow it was definitely on my mind when I wrote him. I found it a little odd when people suggested that him
commenting on women but not men meant he was straight. Which is fine, perception being what it is, but it certainly wasn't avoided. It wasn't like it was anywhere but my head, anyhow. But that's why I didn't consider it a big deal when it came up as a possibility for DA2. As far as I was concerned, nothing about that side of him had even been established.

And, yes, authorial intention doesn't count for much. People perceive what they will, and perhaps we should have gone further to establish that part of those characters more explicitly. I'm just not sure what lengths I'd want to go to just to make some people more comfortable with the idea... because, as I suggested above, I'm not sure all the reasons they're expressing for that discomfort are actually genuine.

Personally, were we given the resources to have enough romances that we could have an even spread of sexualities across the party I'd be more than happy to have those sexualities be explicit... but if the idea otherwise is to restrict those interested in gay romances from having the same number of options as others, then no. Fairness and fun gameplay win out.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 mars 2013 - 03:07 .

[David Gaider]

HeriocGreyWarden wrote...
The thing is I was not saying stuff agains bisexuallity,I am against playersexuallity

They are not 'playersexual'. Perhaps read it again.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
My question is: why now? For instance, would you do Origins romances the same way if you were to make the game right now? Since Origins had 2 bisexual characters and 2 heterosexual characters but no  explicitly homosexual characters? Would that be a non starter since you  wouldn't have an equal representation of homosexual options?

If we did Origins now, it would have been exactly the same way. One has to remember that, while it doesn't seem that long ago, Origins was a very different time. When we started work designing Origins, the only game which had any gay options was Jade Empire. It was still a pretty new thing.

Or  would the Dragon Age team consider doing something like you had with  Mass Effect 3 where you had Cortez and Traynor as homosexual options  that were explicitly homosexual (turning down a Shep of the opposite  sex)? Or even keeping explicitly heterosexual options in a similar role?

Absolutely. The only issue is we'd need the resources to do so-- ME3 essentially had 6 romances in total, not 4. If the total number of romances is going to be lower, than they need to do double-duty (so to speak). I've always said that my preference would be to have set sexualities if we had sufficient resources... my only reservation at this point would be the notion that it would be us "caving" to those who complained, that their complaints would be the only reason we'd do something differently.

And I would imagine  having a more defined and uniquely  written companion/NPC would make for a better sounding board for the  player character.

I don't think that having a set sexuality makes a character "more defined and uniquely written". Alistair had no sexual history at all, and while he's primarily attracted to women it wouldn't have changed his character had he discovered an attraction for the male Warden. Similarly, Morrigan discovering her friendship with the female Warden had grown into something more wouldn't have changed her.

Just because a character can be romanced by any PC doesn't mean they automatically prefer each gender equally... that they're "only gay" in once instance and "only straight" in another. Zevran could be romanced by a man, for instance, even though he admitted that women were his preference. There are some additional things which can be brought up if a character has a set sexuality, but I think it's a stretch when someone makes a connection to the writing of that character-- they're looking for causality where none exists.

[David Gaider]

Saibh wrote...
This is getting really confusing. You say that their sexuality is subjective (if not to the player, then what?), here and here.

I get why some folks might not like the "subjective sexuality" of some of the characters...

What I don't get is how some people go right to "everyone is bisexual". Which they're not.

You'll have to forgive me, I honestly don't see how to interpret this. "Subjective sexuality" and "playersexual" are interchangeable. Oh! Unless you define "playersexual" as despite being heterosexual or homosexual, they make the exception for the player character? Which is not, in my experience, what people are saying.

The issue is with their perception of the character's sexuality, hence the subjectiveness. The character's sexuality itself is not subjective.

I know some people believe their sexualities to be subjective-- hence the use of "playersexual"-- but that's why I referred to "subjective sexuality" in quotes or said "supposed subjective sexuality"... it's what they're saying, not I.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 mars 2013 - 07:33 .

[David Gaider]

HeriocGreyWarden wrote...
So you are saying Fenris and Merill are straight but still likes same sex Hawke?

I said no such thing.

I have no interest in telling you whether Fenris or Merrill are "actually straight". I was referring to how the characters were written, and that their sexuality was the same despite which parts you were exposed to.

Then I edited that out because I thought it might be confusing. Which now it doubly is. So I think I'm going to exit this discussion, as I've said enough... this could probably go on and on for ages.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 mars 2013 - 07:36 .

[David Gaider]

LPPrince wrote...
Let me try to see if I'm understanding this right-

Characters don't have a subjective sexuality in that they change from being purely heterosexual or purely homosexual based on the gender of the PC. So then their sexualities ARE set in stone. Since they're good with men and women, that makes them all bisexual. Buuut then wasn't it said before that they aren't all bisexu-

Yep I'm lost.

Yep. This argument goes around in circles so many times, that any attempt I make to explain it just gets responded to with a "but what if--", and then interpreted to be an explanation for something else. I'm realizing that it's basically pointless to explain.

All the romances in DA2 are available to anyone. If you're desperate to slap a label onto their sexuality, that's your issue. It doesn't affect how they're written, and doesn't affect how the writers think about them. Set sexualities would offer some extra opportunities (and I've always said it's my preference, given the resources), but it would not make the characters "more defined" outside of the person who, quite seriously, just needs to get over it.

And if you can't get over it, if the characters just aren't defining their sexuality in concrete terms enough for you to wrap your head around, so that suddenly reality loses all meaning... then too damned bad. It's optional content. The team really has much bigger things to worry about, and quite frankly we've not said anything about what we're doing in DA3 for romances period.

/grumpywriter

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 mars 2013 - 08:11 .

[David Gaider]

Seeing as we've now wandered well off topic and are heading quickly into territory ripe for badness, I'm shutting it down. Anyone who wants to start their own separate discussion should start a different thread for it: but tread carefully. You all know this sort of thing is a charged topic.