1981 réponses à ce sujet

[Mathias]

I don't like having all romances bisexual either. It's awfully convenient and does kinda cheapen them as a romance. 1 bisexual character is fine, but there are romances that should stay exclusive to certain genders. Mass Effect for the most part did this. If you look at DA2, it comes off as a world where there's no such thing as being gay. They're ALL bisexual and play both sides of the fence.

[Rixatrix]

LarryDavid wrote...
The filter you use result in 1 LI in DAO ad 2 in DA2. Some people want LIs that are solely straight and hence they had 1 option in DAO and 0 in DA2. So why would the implementation of DA2 be the fairest? What is you moral ground to make absolute statements about what is fairest for everyone?

Do you know what "tyranny of the majority" means?  

If what was "fair" was to "proportionally represent" the player base (as iirc your previous posts suggested), that would challenge the very meaning of the word "fair."  Countries around the world have so strongly reacted to the failings of catering to the majority that they have legislated equal protection and equal treatment of minorities into their legal systems, strictly because acting in a way that only fulfills the need and wants of a "majority" (which that majority might mistakenly call "fair") results in an unjust and unconscionable detriment to minorities.  Things are far from perfect in terms of equality, but in a fantasy game, where it's easy to implement equal treatment, what compelling reason is there not to?  "Unrealistic," "uncomfortable," "not ideal," and similar arguments are reasons, but at least by my judgment, are not compelling reasons, and do not defeat the reason of equality.

I'm not saying that BioWare owes me anything, but if we're going to discuss what would be "fair," let's not muddy the waters between what is subjectively satisfying and what is equal.

[Sylvianus]

Rawgrim wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

fchopin wrote...

They are not bisexual in DA2 apart for Isabella; they change depending on what gender you select for your character.

The problem here is that you're limiting expressions of bisexuality to 'incredibly lusty and sexually active.'

A bisexual person can also be a shy, inexperienced type like Merrill. How she expresses her desires does not make her less bi.

Don't be daft. The only ones with a stated sexuality in the games were Isabela and Sebastian. The rest it was dealers choice and as I said earlier, is dependent upon metagaming to even realize that. It has nothing to do with "limiting expressions of bisexuality", and this is a bisexual telling that. 

Someone earlier mentioned playersexuality, and that is a fitting term for this I think, considering the romances are designed to be player-centric, and since the characters don't initiate with the exception of Isabela and Anders, it still is a non-issue if you ask me. Ironic enough considering its the same thing everyone else loves about other RPGs, but hates about Dragon Age II's...

Being able to decide NPC`s sexuality is not something people love in rpgs. To be honest i can`t even think of another rpg that lets the player make that desicion.

There was skyrim, but that was really creepy.   Npcs were already like zombies, totally irrelevant, it was even more absurd with that feature.

Also I wonder how some people could love being able to decide Npc's sexuality. It makes me only think that my companions are less alive. This isn't about the player here.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 28 juin 2013 - 07:49 .

[Eveangaline]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Eveangaline wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

fchopin wrote...

They are not bisexual in DA2 apart for Isabella; they change depending on what gender you select for your character.

The problem here is that you're limiting expressions of bisexuality to 'incredibly lusty and sexually active.'

A bisexual person can also be a shy, inexperienced type like Merrill. How she expresses her desires does not make her less bi.

Don't be daft. The only ones with a stated sexuality in the games were Isabela and Sebastian. The rest it was dealers choice and as I said earlier, is dependent upon metagaming to even realize that. It has nothing to do with "limiting expressions of bisexuality", and this is a bisexual telling that. 

Someone earlier mentioned playersexuality, and that is a fitting term for this I think, considering the romances are designed to be player-centric, and since the characters don't initiate with the exception of Isabela and Anders, it still is a non-issue if you ask me. Ironic enough considering its the same thing everyone else loves about other RPGs, but hates about Dragon Age II's...

Anders sexuality is not player character related as he had a boyfriend and has slept with isabella no matter what you do.

Fenris also sleeps with isabella so long as he's not currently being romanced.

Fenris and Isabela relationship reveal is also a random dialogue which you have no guarentee to hear. I heard it the first time on my second playthrough so I didn't even know it existed until then. Again that is metagame knowledge.

Same with Anders, as someone said earlier it depends wether you are male/female to find that information out. Also depends on how you question him in the dialogue if I recall. 

The only links between all the games is Isabela and Sebastian, who don't change based on the players gender, that is kind of my point in the end. 

Wait companion banter doesn't count as knowledge about a character because you might not hear it? Only information you absolutely must hear counts?


Well crap, you can run through a whole game barely ever talking to anything and refusing to do their quests. By that logic in those runthroughs the characters must be shells of people with no personality or history to speak of.

[Plaintiff]

Sylvianus wrote...
This isn't about the player here. 

But it is, it's entirely about the player, especially in a roleplaying game where the major draw and entire point of the genre (at least according many in this forum) is to have the world shape itself around the player's choices.

[Silfren]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Silfren wrote...
With that said...and please I do NOT want to get this discussion bogged down in real world sexual politics, so please just don't...the lore we have on Thedas does strongly indicate that real world biases toward the expression of sexuality have no place in this fictional setting.  This should matter.  Once you are informed that the lore of Thedas does not have the component of homophobia, especially not religiously-rooted homophobia, then you, frankly, need to set aside your pre-existing ideas.  I don't see why it should be such a stretch to realize that you are reading a fictional world where the assumptions and prejudices are either completely different or else just quite literally non-existent.

I do not believe that removing homophobia would result in everyone being bi. Since you don't want to get into RL issues, I won't go into detail about it except saying that reproduction lies at the root of sexuality, and that this remains the strongest determining factor even though we've learned to use it for other things (and I most emphatically have no issue with that at all, regardless of the genders involved). Anyone can have any sexual orientation, but a world where everyone is bi appears thoroughly alien to me. I'd accept it as an artificial experimental setting created, for instance, through genetic engineering, in order to explore the possiblities of such a setup, and since I don't have a preference for the natural over the artificial I think we could learn to live in such a world, but as the premise of a non-artificial world populated with humans it doesn't work for me. Or in short: "humans aren't like that".

Reproduction lying at the heart of sexuality is completely irrelevant.  Surely you are not about to make the same really silly argument that not being heterosexual renders a person infertile?  Biology is only part of the story; social conditioning does matter, and I'd actually argue that it can potentially play a greater role.  Removing homophobia from the equation obviously wouldn't make bisexuality the biological state of everyone's preference, no.  But the lack of homophobia would probably result in people NOT segregating preference into one of three neat boxes, and it is entirely possible that a society without hangups concerning sexual orientation or preference would be one in which concepts of bi/hetero/homosexual did not exist; rather, people would simply be sexual creatures who didn't waste time philosophizing about the nature of their preferences.

I think that DA2 does a decent, though not perfect, job of this, but I've read other fictional settings that make the point much better: the issues you are describing are not rooted solely or even primarily in biology, but are the result of no small amount of societal conditioning.  A setting in which the dominant culture is not preoccupied with sexuality having certain correct expressions and others all being maladaptive ones, and in which people are not divided into camps that each argue for and against the question of whether sexuality is biologically determined or "chosen," is not likely going to mirror ours as much as you apparently think it would in terms of the breakdown of who identifies as what. 

As an aside, it occurs to me that our differing views may actually have something to do with how we each perceive the nature of sexuality.  I know that the commonly preferred answer is to think of it as an inborn orientation, but I tend to think of it more in terms of evolving preference.  My own studies have me convinced that most people actually fall somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey scale, with relatively few people strictly being truly either/or.  But this is specifically because I think the general population tends toward a more fluid sexuality in biological terms, while ending up consciously identifying a particular way due to their environment.  Let me add that I realize this is not 100% true. 

To bring this back to DA, I think a setting in which there is no overarching bias against homosexuality on grounds of it being an an aberration, people are going to generally regard themselves as sexual without paying too much attention to whether they specifically prefer one over the other, because there is no overarching social pressure that makes it necessary.  Even cultures which might push for heterosexual pairings for the purpose of procreation (Elves, human nobility focused on creating heirs), I'm unaware of any aggressive social tendencies to quash non-hetero interactions so much as encouraging a setup where the parties involved have their procreative-friendly union in addition to the romantic union they personally prefer.  This would naturally lead to more people being more openly willing to engage in and publically express relationships that are something other than strictly hetero.

[Chanda]

I don't really understand why people are still arguing about this feature of the LI's being player-sexual. Player-sexual is how it's going to be. It's already set in stone. Nothing you say is going to change it. It's time to build a bridge, get over it, and move on.

As for the romances, I know the devs said they aren't going to be more in-depth or less in-depth than what we've had before. I'm fine with that. But for some reason I felt a deeper connection to the LI's in DAO than I did in DA2, and I think that's because the interaction with them was different. And I believe the devs have said they've learned from people saying that, and they've made changes accordingly for Inquisition.

[LinksOcarina]

Eveangaline wrote...

Wait companion banter doesn't count as knowledge about a character because you might not hear it? Only information you absolutely must hear counts?


Well crap, you can run through a whole game barely ever talking to anything and refusing to do their quests. By that logic in those runthroughs the characters must be shells of people with no personality or history to speak of.

I does count, my point is i didn't know it existed until I heard it after I was familiar with the game and the characters. That is what makes it metagame, its random information not everyone is guarenteed to hear. 

This is why I only consider Isabela and Sebastian the only characters with definitive sexuality, they state them in each playthrough right up front, for a lack of a better phrase, while everyone else is either catered to the player (the player-centric notion again) or stated after the fact at random. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 28 juin 2013 - 07:57 .

[Eveangaline]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Eveangaline wrote...

Wait companion banter doesn't count as knowledge about a character because you might not hear it? Only information you absolutely must hear counts?


Well crap, you can run through a whole game barely ever talking to anything and refusing to do their quests. By that logic in those runthroughs the characters must be shells of people with no personality or history to speak of.

I does count, my point is i didn't know it existed until I heard it after I was familiar with the game and the characters. That is what makes it metagame, its random information not everyone is guarenteed to hear. 

This is why I only consider Isabela and Sebastian the only characters with definitive sexuality, they state them in each playthrough right up front, for a lack of a better phrase, while everyone else is either catered to the player (the player-centric notion again) or stated after the fact at random. 

I really don't understand how information stated in game doesn't count just because someone might not bother to trigger it. It's not metagame, it's just that if you don't bother to hear what your companions have to say obviously you aren't going to learn that much about them.

If you don't bring along Anders to find gray wardens in the deep roads, does that mean they weren't there? I'd say they're there, you just didn't do what was necessary to find them.

Same way the sexuality is the same in every playthrough of a character. It's just that you don't always run into a situation that lets you find out the information about their sexuality.

[Plaintiff]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Eveangaline wrote...

Wait companion banter doesn't count as knowledge about a character because you might not hear it? Only information you absolutely must hear counts?


Well crap, you can run through a whole game barely ever talking to anything and refusing to do their quests. By that logic in those runthroughs the characters must be shells of people with no personality or history to speak of.

I does count, my point is i didn't know it existed until I heard it after I was familiar with the game and the characters. That is what makes it metagame, its random information not everyone is guarenteed to hear. 

This is why I only consider Isabela and Sebastian the only characters with definitive sexuality, they state them in each playthrough right up front, for a lack of a better phrase, while everyone else is either catered to the player (the player-centric notion again) or stated after the fact at random. 

Well, even if Fenris does sleep with Isabela, it dosn't automatically pigeonhole him into the "straight" box. One experience doesn't set your sexuality in stone forever.

And we should probably all be grateful for that.

[Aleya]

Chanda wrote...
I don't really understand why people are still arguing about this feature of the LI's being player-sexual. Player-sexual is how it's going to be. It's already set in stone. Nothing you say is going to change it. It's time to build a bridge, get over it, and move on.

Because I vehemently disagree with the notion of NPCs being different people depending on who the PC is.

That works for games where everything gets tailored to the player, but Bioware is supposed to be the one shining oasis of a company that actually creates companions with strong individual identities. I love that about Bioware. I was unbelievably sad that it changed in DA2, and I suppose somewhere deep down the hope remains that if the dissatisfied faction of the player base can just explain why player-based sexuality is bad, maybe the writers will change it back to normal in DAI.

[LinksOcarina]

Eveangaline wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Eveangaline wrote...

Wait companion banter doesn't count as knowledge about a character because you might not hear it? Only information you absolutely must hear counts?


Well crap, you can run through a whole game barely ever talking to anything and refusing to do their quests. By that logic in those runthroughs the characters must be shells of people with no personality or history to speak of.

I does count, my point is i didn't know it existed until I heard it after I was familiar with the game and the characters. That is what makes it metagame, its random information not everyone is guarenteed to hear. 

This is why I only consider Isabela and Sebastian the only characters with definitive sexuality, they state them in each playthrough right up front, for a lack of a better phrase, while everyone else is either catered to the player (the player-centric notion again) or stated after the fact at random. 

I really don't understand how information stated in game doesn't count just because someone might not bother to trigger it. It's not metagame, it's just that if you don't bother to hear what your companions have to say obviously you aren't going to learn that much about them.

If you don't bring along Anders to find gray wardens in the deep roads, does that mean they weren't there? I'd say they're there, you just didn't do what was necessary to find them.

Same way the sexuality is the same in every playthrough of a character. It's just that you don't always run into a situation that lets you find out the information about their sexuality.

Again, it is metagaming because you now know information about the characters before or after you play the game, and start up again.

If you don't bring Anders into the deep roads, basically yes, they weren't there. We don't know about it, because if we did we would bring Ander's every time to find them. This is all about the mentality of the PC, or Hawke in this case. That is a good example of what I mean.  If you don't want to play that way thats fine, but that doesn't stop that all from being metagame knowledge since it doesn't present itself to the player every time. It changes the texture of the narrative that way.

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 28 juin 2013 - 08:07 .

[Iakus]

Plaintiff wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...
This isn't about the player here. 

But it is, it's entirely about the player, especially in a roleplaying game where the major draw and entire point of the genre (at least according many in this forum) is to have the world shape itself around the player's choices.

Being able to determine the sexuality of a given character (besides the player character) is too much like mind control for my taste.

"You will be attracted to me.  I deem it so!" 

[Kallimachus]

Eveangaline wrote...

I really don't understand how information stated in game doesn't count just because someone might not bother to trigger it. It's not metagame, it's just that if you don't bother to hear what your companions have to say obviously you aren't going to learn that much about them.

Except that it IS metagame if there is no way for that information to appear in your playthrough. It didn't just "not appear" because you were too lazy to chat, or because you picked a different option. That event/talk/statement would never ever have any chance of appearing in the specific reality of the playthrough you are playing. Just like Bethany would never support you against the prostitute blood mage if your hawke is a mage, Fenris is attracted to men if your Hawke is a man, and no there's nothing to indicate he's bisexual

[Silfren]

Aleya wrote...

BlueMagitek wrote...

Some people believe characters should be able to stand on their own merits and not have every piece of them bound to the PC.
....
So for every character to be interested in the player character just rubs people the wrong way. Very rarely does it have to do with the character being bi. And the lack of indication of bisexuality outside of the PC.

Very much this. I don't mind all LIs being bisexual. I mind all LIs being PCsexual.

I agree with your take on Anders.  There was literally no reason at all to hide his relationship with Karl on the F!Hawke playthrough.  I don't think any your interpretive options given were what Bioware had in mind, and it must be said that those interpretations involve meta-gaming, but nevertheless, Bioware's slip in this regard kind of forced players to come up with rationalizations.

That said, the quoted bit is what I'm really confused about.

It is true that every character should be able to stand on their own merits and not be totally bound to the PC.  There is no fault in any of this reasoning; it's just the nature of good writing and well-developed characters.

The thing is, though, that the LIs, specific of all the characters, HAVE to be written in a certain way by virtue of being available LIs.  To speak of every character as being interested in the PC is silly, because every character is not.  But Bioware allots four of those characters as potential LIs, so by definition they have to be written this way. 

Which is why I'm confused that you specifically state you don't have a problem with the LIs being bisexual.  For all intents and purposes, this is precisely what they are, so what is the problem?  Again, because they are intended to be LIs, they have to be written with this availability in mind.  If you don't have an issue with them being bisexual, then what is the problem? I'm genuinely confused here, because it looks to me as if the bigger problem is a misperception of the fact that writing LIs comes with specific, inherent limitations.  It is not as if Bioware writes all of its existing characters to be potentially interested in the PC. 

Ultimately, it seems to be that the actual problem, Companions who are written so that they are available to the PC regardless of that PCs personality or decisions, is being conflated with the issue of inclusive sexuality options.

[Plaintiff]

iakus wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...
This isn't about the player here. 

But it is, it's entirely about the player, especially in a roleplaying game where the major draw and entire point of the genre (at least according many in this forum) is to have the world shape itself around the player's choices.

Being able to determine the sexuality of a given character (besides the player character) is too much like mind control for my taste.

"You will be attracted to me.  I deem it so!" 

I don't think we're determining anything at all. All four LIs will bang Hawke, regardless of gender. But that one relationship isn't really enough to extrapolate their entire sexual preference, which might even defy labelling, as some individuals do.

Does it really matter why they're attracted to Hawke? Why do we need to rationalise it at all?

[Dave of Canada]

Silfren wrote...

For that matter, what about the bi characters from Origins?  Were they better written, or were they equally watered down? 

They were pretty irrelevant when it came to the game in general, Alistair and Morrigan got more screen time and their characterization was tied to the main plot (making them the best romances ever done in a BioWare game, imo).

Whether or not it had something to do with them being bisexual, I don't know.  Zevran's romance felt barebones, lacking the oomph which pushed it any direction and Leliana's romance was fairly typical with nothing that special aside from female players getting "I like your hair" dialogue.

That's not to say there isn't room for improvement but bisexual romances so far have just been interchanging "he/she" and perhaps one conversation, something which exists due to the fact that they're basically forcing more lines for completely optional content.

Any potential budgeting on a single sexuality basically means that content could be warped around the character's sexuality, I've always asked for bisexual characters with differing conflicts depending on sexuality in situations where it plays crucial roles (parenthood, etc) but that's not feasible. Looking back, I'd doubt we'd get Queen Cousland for Alistair if the character was relegated to a bisexual romance.

[Rixatrix]

Aleya wrote...

Chanda wrote...
I don't really understand why people are still arguing about this feature of the LI's being player-sexual. Player-sexual is how it's going to be. It's already set in stone. Nothing you say is going to change it. It's time to build a bridge, get over it, and move on.

Because I vehemently disagree with the notion of NPCs being different people depending on who the PC is.

That works for games where everything gets tailored to the player, but Bioware is supposed to be the one shining oasis of a company that actually creates companions with strong individual identities. I love that about Bioware. I was unbelievably sad that it changed in DA2, and I suppose somewhere deep down the hope remains that if the dissatisfied faction of the player base can just explain why player-based sexuality is bad, maybe the writers will change it back to normal in DAI.

If the NPCs being "different people depending on who the PC is" is your true issue, would all romanceable NPCs being strictly homosexual solve your problem?

[Kallimachus]

Dave of Canada wrote...

 I'd doubt we'd get Queen Cousland for Alistair if the character was relegated to a bisexual romance.

I really object to your use of that verb. It is offensive.

Modifié par Kallimachus, 28 juin 2013 - 08:43 .

[Dave of Canada]

Kallimachus wrote...

I really object to your use of that verb. In is offensive.

Why? I didn't dismiss bisexuals, I dismissed the portrayal of bisexual romances.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 28 juin 2013 - 08:32 .

[Sylvianus]

Plaintiff wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...
This isn't about the player here. 

But it is, it's entirely about the player, especially in a roleplaying game where the major draw and entire point of the genre (at least according many in this forum) is to have the world shape itself around the player's choices.

But there are always limits, you cannot shape what defines people and the world in which you are playing if the company cares about its story and its writting. You can affect the characters and the world by your choices, you can influence them, you can change them, but you cannot turn them into your property. They are not.

A warrior like Allistair, won't become a mage, even if I could hate Morrigan and Wynn while I need a mage in my party. Why the world doesn't answer to my player's choice since it's a rpg  ?  A woman as a companion won't turn into a man because that's your wish as a player. Leliana loves shoes and there's nothing you can do except trying to change her mind or giving your opinion. Sexuality isn't something that you decide either for your companions within the story, you are what you are. Some can evolve, some remain true to what they always have been.

The same as you couldn't change the fact that your companion is a man born with magic within the story. You can change the mind of your companions, not really what defines them as human being in my opinion.

I know there are some rpg games which allow you to choose the physical of your companions,  ( as if it was our property in my opinion ) but you'll notice that when that's the case,  they are not independent at all or don't seem alive, ( dragon dogma ) simply depending on your wishes and how you have modeled them.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 28 juin 2013 - 10:07 .

[Silfren]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Kallimachus wrote...

I really object to your use of that verb. In is offensive.

Why? I didn't dismiss bisexuals, I dismissed the portrayal of bisexual romances.

Well, the way it was written made it look as though you think that bisexual romances are by definition inferior. 

[Kallimachus]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Kallimachus wrote...

I really object to your use of that verb. In is offensive.

Why? I didn't dismiss bisexuals, I dismissed the portrayal of bisexual romances.

You dismissed what is essentially the only way gay romances can appear in computer games. And that's let's face it the crux of it. And don't give me the "but look at Cortez". The Cortez romance was completely lopsided, and almost hollow, and he would probably play better as a character if he did not have the option of romancing Shepherd at all.

I cannot express opinions on the traynor romance, as I never played it.

Now while it is possible for Lesbian-only romance characters to appear in games (although, also infrequently), I don't see any company investing in developing a fully fleshed exclusively gay romance character. Even if you look at character companion mods you'll be hard pressed to find such characters (and believe me, I searched). In fact in all the games I played only two come to mind (Nathaniel for BG2 and White for BG and BGEE).

And besides, there has never been a bisexual romance in any Dragon Age game and, as I mentioned, only Zevran, Leliana and Isabela were bisexual (and Anders was pansexual)

[Realmzmaster]

Interesting! I thought it was all about player choice. The player gets to choose whether the romance will be straight, bi or homosexual on any given playthrough. Any information that is used by the player from a previous playthrough is metagame information.

If you role play the Hawke you created he or she does not know the sexual orientation of the companions on any given playthrough. The problem comes when you use the information from a previous playthrough with a different Hawke.

Anders will hit on male Hawke but if Hawke turns him down that is it.Same with Fenris. The same happens if the player has a female Hawke she can turn him down, but you will not know that on any given playthrough. The problem will subsequent playthroughs is that the player not the PC cannot get previous information out of his/her mind.

The player cannot divorce what you know from what the PC is suppose to know or not know. The player is unable to see the new Hawke as just a blank slate who has to learn about his/her companions all over again. That is the problem. Only gamers who play the game more than once and respond in different ways to the prompts will even know this.