596 réponses à ce sujet

[HolyAvenger]

The Heisenberg principle, applied to sexuality. I like it.

[LPPrince]

Hahaha, Sej. If I were the devs(especially Mr. Gaider in this case) I'd probably be insane too with all the confusion going on.

Modifié par LPPrince, 20 mars 2013 - 08:36 .

[The Hierophant]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

The Hierophant wrote...
So basically Testarossa, your point was that a mage Hawke could start a relationship with Fenris regardless of his bias towards them, and continue their mage supporting campaign without fear of him dumping them?

My point was entirely unrelated to Fenris' romance. discosuperfly claimed that not being able to romance whomever you like is inherently bad because it restricts choice. That's nonsense. You should be able to try and romance someone. That doesn't mean it should always be possible for you to succeed. You should be able to choose actions, not consequences.

If a companion is straight or gay, he's straight or gay. It is not inherently bad to not be able to change that, just like it is not inherently bad to not able to change whether Fenris likes or dislikes magic.

I agree with this and is why i enjoyed FO:NV's companions, and characters.

[Rawgrim]

HolyAvenger wrote...

The Heisenberg principle, applied to sexuality. I like it.

More like the Stockholm Syndrome

[Cyberfrog81]

While there are things that bothered me about Anders, his sexuality was a rather insignificant part of it.

Maybe DA2's romances would have worked for me if the rest of the game did.

[syllogi]

Rawgrim wrote...

Hmm so if I make a male character, it will be him + a bunch of gay dudes and a bunch of straight women running about.

If i make a female character it will be her + a bunch of lesbians (formerly straight) and a bunch of straight men (formerly gay) running around and doing quests.

So...it is actually alot more difficult to find friends of your own gender, that happen to be straight then.

I pretty much always have female characters.  I never romanced Merrill, and in my games, she never "came out" as one thing or the other, sexuality-wise, to any of my characters.  My Hawkes were okay with that, they were doing other things (and other people).

One of my Hawkes awkwardly asked Anders to stop flirting, another complimented him on being a fine looking abomination.  Another Hawke managed to bypass flirting altogether, by being aggressive.  Anders was the same character no matter what my Hawke did.

None of my Hawkes can jump into each other's games, or other player's games, so it doesn't matter what happens in other versions of the story of DA2.  Merrill's whole clan was wiped out in one game, it didn't change who Merrill was in my next playthrough where they lived.

Video games are not static.  Out of every possible game mechanic that could be set in stone, what does this one story element (sexual orientation of party members) really matter?  If, as some critics claim, Bioware romances are cheap and superficial, then what do I care who Merrill finds attractive when my Hawke isn't romancing her?  I still did all her quests and was satisfied by my interactions with her.  How would confirming that Merrill really wants to puke on Carver change my game?

[nightscrawl]

David Gaider wrote...

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

Great, now I'm worried you're just going to kill them all off... and I haven't even met them yet! x_x

[Sjpelke]

syllogi wrote...

Ferretinabun wrote...

For what it's worth, I just wanted to add that DA2 DOES have straight companions: Aveline and Sebastian are both straight.

So 'Everyone is bi' is clearly false.

And Varric is Biancasexual.  Funny how with all the cries about realism, nobody seems to have a problem with the deep and abiding love between a dwarf and his crossbow.

I for one liked the fact that Varric was not romancable. His 'love' for Bianca I interpreted more as him being snarky about relations in general.

Might even be him saying he lost his wanting to get involved because of a previous experience . Could also just mean he is just not interested in getting involved with someone that complicates his life.

Either way; Varric is one of my favorite characters in DA2. Whatever he prefers in terms of relationships is still in the open as far as I remember from the convo ingame. Whatever happens in that department, if he returns in DAI, is fine with me.

[Hazegurl]

Rawgrim wrote...

Dirgegun wrote...

It never broke my immersion, personally. I mean... to really break your immersion you'd have to be metagaming through the entire thing in the first place, right? So you've already broken your immersion yourself. It isn't something the game, itself, has done.

I also thought some of the characters might be more demisexual or pansexual than bisexual, too. Fenris always seemed a bit demisexual to me, for exampe.

The romance icon in the dialogue wheel told me they were romantically available. Not really metagaming when there isa huge heartshaped spotlight telling me if I click it, that character will be into me. it broke immersion for me. If it didn`t break it for others, I am happy for them - of course.

No the heart is just a flirtation. As it was pointed out. A female Hawke can flirt with Varric choosing the heart icon. Yet no relationship would ever come from it. A male (not sure is a female can do it) Hawke can flirt with Aveline, more than once, yet nothing comes of it. How does flirting with someone break immersion. My Hawke flirted with everyone but only had Fenris.

Modifié par Hazegurl, 20 mars 2013 - 09:22 .

[Silfren]

DarkSpiral wrote...

Really? 
I can think of many example to the contrary.  Nevermind that, though, that is RL and not the DA games.

You can say that the issue of how much personality is tied up into sexuality is a tricky one, and you'd be absolutely right.  There are an awful lot of facotrs involved.  My issue with the presentation of sexuality in DA2 is that NONE of those factors appear to have been dealt with.  It was all handwaived, for the sake of allowing any played the option of any possible LI.  And that was a mistake.  Because there are so very many factors, some of them should have had SOME effect on the LIs that weren't straight.  And they didn't.

I looked over my phrasing and think I should clarify that I meant that a person who has identified as (or merely been assumed to be) straight their entire life, only to come out as either gay or bi, they DON'T suddenly become a different person.  They remain the same individual they've always been.  The notion that they are suddenly a different person is an illusion in the eyes of people struggling to come to terms with the unexpected.  This is because a person is SO much more than just the expression of their sexuality; the idea that their sexuality defines their personlity in total is a perceptual myth.

[wright1978]

syllogi wrote...


None of my Hawkes can jump into each other's games, or other player's games, so it doesn't matter what happens in other versions of the story of DA2.  Merrill's whole clan was wiped out in one game, it didn't change who Merrill was in my next playthrough where they lived.

agree wholeheartedly

[Hazegurl]

David Gaider wrote...

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

Thank you! Cause that above needs to be said more often.

What confuses me the most is why so many people have an issue with how all the characters define themselves sexually. I love that they are all available to me if I choose to romance them. If I choose not to romance them then I don't see why their sexuality even matters. The only thing I care about is that Fenris is available for my gay Hawke. That's all I need. lol!!

[Paul E Dangerously]

Hazegurl wrote...Thank you! Cause that above needs to be said more often.

What confuses me the most is why so many people have an issue with how all the characters define themselves sexually. I love that they are all available to me if I choose to romance them. If I choose not to romance them then I don't see why their sexuality even matters. The only thing I care about is that Fenris is available for my gay Hawke. That's all I need. lol!!

While I can't speak for everyone (or anyone, really) having sexuality just magically flip according to Hawke's gender so nobody can ever get locked out of anything comes out as either pandering, or being afraid that someone will get offended that Character X might prefer Gender X but not Gender Y and raise hell on the forums.

[katiebour]

David Gaider wrote...

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

Thank you, sir.  If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the characters are available to everyone not because of some set sexuality, but because a) it gives every player of every sexual orientation (except male asexuals- female asexuals can enjoy Sebastian) an option to play the game they want.  The issue is not so much "NPC A is bisexual" but more "these are the romancible characters we can afford to write" (and believe me, as a soon-to-graduate computer science major, I absolutely understand what a massive undertaking from every department- from the art/modelling department to the writing department to the coding department to the lore department to the testing department) and that you want to make what you have available to every player so that they can enjoy the game romance of their dreams, so to speak.

Human sexuality covers such a broad spectrum anyway- from people who enjoy romance but don't enjoy the physical act, to people who enjoy relationships with people regardless of their plumbing, to people who enjoy relationships with people of the same or opposite gender, to... I could probably name off at least another ten categories of increasing specificity.

Is it possible to have four romancible characters who are all bi/pan and one straight guy with asexual leanings due to internal religious conflict?  Yep. (and I have to admit, I'm very curious to see if Seb comes back, and what a rivalmance of his might mean in a future game- but I digress. )

Is it possible to have two openly bi/pan characters and two characters who find the admiration and respect they have for their fearless leader building into attraction and the desire for a relationship, regardless of the fearless leader's gender?  Yep.

Is it possible that game developers, faced with time and money limits before the game is released, might take the option for the romancible characters to be optional content that is nevertheless available to as much of their playerbase as possible, rather than writing content that less than 10% of the gamer pool will ever see (like playing a dwarf in Origins- and as someone who played a dwarf as my first ever Warden, GO TEAM AEDUCAN! XD)  Those less-than-10% might appreciate the optional content and love it dearly (as I do my Aeducan and as my friends do their Broscas) but it's still a lot of work that most players will never see.

So what do you do?  You write a character like Fenris, and instead of making him gay (and thus content that only gamers interested in a gay romance will play) you make him open to falling in love with both a male and female Hawke, which ups the number of people who engage in said content and decrease the number of complaints by players who wanted to romance said character with a protagonist of x or y gender.  Same for Merrill.  Same for Anders and Isabela except that both had some backstory due to involvement in previous games that needed to be addressed, since they weren't coming from a blank slate like Fen and Merrill.

As for Seb, well, I guess he's equally frustrating for both men and women of any orientation in a sexual way.  XD  Equality for everyone! 

I'd love to see the percentages of players that chose the various romance options with different genders, i.e. Male Hawke or Female Hawke romancing each of the toons.  It might be illuminating for people to see those percentages, and to realize how many people out of the entire playerbase would have been excluded if Fenris, Merrill and Anders had been put in gay/straight boxes.

[katiebour]

Rawgrim wrote...

Hmm so if I make a male character, it will be him + a bunch of gay dudes and a bunch of straight women running about.

If i make a female character it will be her + a bunch of lesbians (formerly straight) and a bunch of straight men (formerly gay) running around and doing quests.

So...it is actually alot more difficult to find friends of your own gender, that happen to be straight then.

Aveline.  Varric.  Sebastian.

[Blackrising]

Or maybe y'all should just stop trying to slap a label on the characters and accept it for what it is.

When I played DA2, I never once thought of any of the LIs as bisexual, straight or homosexual.
For me it was always just "Merill/Isabela/Anders/Fenris fell in love with Hawke. How wonderful". It never entered my mind to want to define them one way or another. I stopped doing that in real life (since, as others have already stated, sexuality is fluid more often than not), so why the heck should I concern myself with labels in a fantasy video game? All that matters to me is that my main character can love the person they are most compatible with.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Blackrising wrote...

Or maybe y'all should just stop trying to slap a label on the characters and accept it for what it is.

When I played DA2, I never once thought of any of the LIs as bisexual, straight or homosexual.
For me it was always just "Merill/Isabela/Anders/Fenris fell in love with Hawke. How wonderful". It never entered my mind to want to define them one way or another. I stopped doing that in real life (since, as others have already stated, sexuality is fluid more often than not), so why the heck should I concern myself with labels in a fantasy video game? All that matters to me is that my main character can love the person they are most compatible with.

Right.

[The Hierophant]

well damn, anyway who's in favor for weather effects affecting magic, classes, and skills?
(off topic shameless promotion)

Modifié par The Hierophant, 20 mars 2013 - 10:06 .

[LPPrince]

Well...daaamn

[Blackrising]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

Blackrising wrote...

Or maybe y'all should just stop trying to slap a label on the characters and accept it for what it is.

When I played DA2, I never once thought of any of the LIs as bisexual, straight or homosexual.
For me it was always just "Merill/Isabela/Anders/Fenris fell in love with Hawke. How wonderful". It never entered my mind to want to define them one way or another. I stopped doing that in real life (since, as others have already stated, sexuality is fluid more often than not), so why the heck should I concern myself with labels in a fantasy video game? All that matters to me is that my main character can love the person they are most compatible with.

Right.

Granted, that might seem a bit contrdictory....

Still that signature is less for 'all LIs should be bisexual!' and more to show my support for the LIs being available to all genders. I couldn't find a signature that fit better, OKAY? DON'T JUDGE ME.

[The Hierophant]

Even though that sig contradicts David Gaider's statements, nice recover you handled that like an OG.
If you ever campaign for the senatorial seat of New York i'd vote for you.

Modifié par The Hierophant, 20 mars 2013 - 10:14 .

[rapscallioness]

I'm fine w/PCSexual. It gives me options.

[Blackrising]

The Hierophant wrote...

Even though that sig contradicts David Gaider's statements, nice recover you handled that like an OG.
If you ever campaign for the senatorial seat of New York i'd vote for you.

I am...unsure what OG means. According to urban dictionary, I am either an 'original gangster' or a very strong asian weed.

[LPPrince]

Blackrising wrote...

Granted, that might seem a bit contradictory....

Still that signature is less for 'all LIs should be bisexual!' and more to show my support for the LIs being available to all genders. I couldn't find a signature that fit better, OKAY? DON'T JUDGE ME.

Isn't that pretty much the same thing? I mean since there's only ever been two genders to choose from.

Anyway, glad we can all still smile about it. Thank God this hasn't turned into one of those screaming matches.

We're all cool here no matter what we believe or what our opinion on the matter is.