260 réponses à ce sujet

[Br3admax]

Obadiah wrote...

I guess Liara's father Matriarch Aethyta doesn't qualify as trans-sexual?

Why would she? Her entire race doesn't even know what to do with itself. 

[CronoDragoon]

The dialogue might be bad compared to, like, Cormac McCarthy or Tarantino or Frank Herbert or the Coen Brothers, but compared to other games it's quite good.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I live in Seattle. The most passive-aggressive city in the USA.

[NeonFlux117]

CronoDragoon wrote...

The dialogue might be bad compared to, like, Cormac McCarthy or Tarantino or Frank Herbert or the Coen Brothers, but compared to other games it's quite good.

Good list. 

[Steelcan]

osbornep wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

So why make the character transgender and not "cisgendered"

I'm confused as to why you need a special reason to make a character one rather than the other. A transgender character has to be thematically connected to the story, but it needn't be for the reason that the character is transgendered, just as Anderson's importance to the story doesn't consist in the fact that he's black or that he's from London.

You either get an insignificant transgender character who could easily be any other sexuality, in that case, using transexual is for controversy or inclusivity for marketing.

If you want a significant transgender character they need to connect to the central themes or plot inextricably.

Honestly Anderson could be any orientation and not much would be affected.  But be honest you can't do that with a transgender character.

[Steelcan]

David7204 wrote...

Is that why you have a blog post proclaiming 'what Mass Effect is about' in your signature? A post lauding the characters? (Both of which utterly, completely sucked, by the way. You sucked at what you attempted to do.) A line of the Citadel DLC with a focus on these characters being 'the One True Ending'?

No, here's what's going on. It's really quite simple. You, like many of the other posters here, are bitter, resentful, and upset at the endings and other content in the game you weren't happy with. More importantly, you're powerless. Completely at the mercy at whatever BioWare gives. As all we are. They pull the strings, and you dance.

Being under the power of someone who makes you unhappy is not something anyone enjoys. So what do they do? Attempt to deny that power. And the way to do that is convince yourself Mass Effect is garbage. Because once you believe that, you're free. You're no longer under anyone's power.

Most people here do it pretty aggressively. You, however, do it more passively, by absorbing all of the nonsense here and elsewhere like a sponge. And eventually agreeing, as we see here. It's very obvious. No one with a functioning brain would spend the amount of time we do here if they really believed the garbage they peddled.

ohhh can you armchair psycho therapist me?!

[Br3admax]

David7204 wrote...

Is that why you have a blog post proclaiming 'what Mass Effect is about' in your signature? A post lauding the characters? (Both of which utterly, completely sucked, by the way. You sucked at what you attempted to do.) A line of the Citadel DLC with a focus on these characters being 'the One True Ending'?

No, here's what's going on. It's really quite simple. You, like many of the other posters here, are bitter, resentful, and upset at the endings and other content in the game you weren't happy with. More importantly, you're powerless. Completely at the mercy at whatever BioWare gives. As all we are. They pull the strings, and you dance.

Being under the power of someone who makes you unhappy is not something anyone enjoys. So what do they do? Attempt to deny that power. And the way to do that is convince yourself Mass Effect is garbage is always has been. Because once you believe that, you're free. You're no longer under anyone's power.

Most people here do it pretty aggressively. You, however, do it more passively, by absorbing all of the nonsense here and elsewhere like a sponge. And eventually agreeing, as we see here. It's very obvious. No one with a functioning brain would spend the amount of time we do here if they really believed the garbage they peddled

Or maybe they really are just awful and we don't like that. Of course you could keep using the physics that you know so well but still don't believe in to be a psychiatrist. Thank you for knowing more about me than I do, David. I really need you to tell me how I really feel. 

[CronoDragoon]

osbornep wrote...

This is a fair criticism (the most reasonable I've heard, actually), but I'd like more clarification as to what constitutes an 'active discussion.' I'm probably not going to be able to respond tonight, though, as I'm likely to be otherwise occupied with work the rest of the evening.

EDIT: Fixed formatting

I assume active discussion refers to the player's ability to ask follow-up questions on the topic. Like how you could ask Leliana about being a bard or Morrigan about being an apostate.

[dreamgazer]

David7204 wrote...

Is that why you have a blog post proclaiming 'what Mass Effect is about' in your signature? A post lauding the characters? (Both of which utterly, completely sucked, by the way. You sucked at what you attempted to do.) A line of the Citadel DLC with a focus on these characters being 'the One True Ending'?

No, here's what's going on. It's really quite simple. You, like many of the other posters here, are bitter, resentful, and upset at the endings and other content in the game you weren't happy with. More importantly, you're powerless. Completely at the mercy at whatever BioWare gives. As all we are. They pull the strings, and you dance.

Being under the power of someone who makes you unhappy is not something anyone enjoys. So what do they do? Attempt to deny that power. And the way to do that is convince yourself Mass Effect is garbage. Because once you believe that, you're free. You're no longer under anyone's power.

Most people here do it pretty aggressively. You, however, do it more passively, by absorbing all of the nonsense here and elsewhere like a sponge. And eventually agreeing, as we see here. It's very obvious. No one with a functioning brain would spend the amount of time we do here if they really believed the garbage they peddled.

What in fucking blue blazes are you going on about, David?

[dreamgazer]

CronoDragoon wrote...

osbornep wrote...

This is a fair criticism (the most reasonable I've heard, actually), but I'd like more clarification as to what constitutes an 'active discussion.' I'm probably not going to be able to respond tonight, though, as I'm likely to be otherwise occupied with work the rest of the evening.

EDIT: Fixed formatting

I assume active discussion refers to the player's ability to ask follow-up questions on the topic. Like how you could ask Leliana about being a bard or Morrigan about being an apostate.

Essentially, but it's also about how the topic would come up in the first place.  

Sexual preference can very easily come up in passive discussion.  This? Not so much. 

[AlanC9]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Samantha's dialogue was overly campy, and Steve's was good for the most part, but the one scene was just horribly written, but then this is a video game. And I guess if one looks at it the dialogue wasn't that much worse than many of the other characters. I can pick Miranda's to death. Liara's. Shepard's. Face it, the dialogue was just bad at a lot of points. I suppose I'm just nitpicking the hell out of the series right now, and the dialogue is just ... bad. 

Why stop with nitpicking this series?DA:O's got some ripe targets. KotOR too. 

[NeonFlux117]

@dreamgazer.

David is trying to illuminate and "ascend" BSN too it's true potential.

You should be in awe and humbled that he graced this thread with his presence.

[Isaidlunch]

You start a romance with Cortez by dancing, kissing and talking about hooking up in a club. You start a romance with Traynor by inviting her to use your shower, then barging in and having sex with her while she's having said shower

I could not think of anything more stereotypical than that. I shudder to think how the ME team would treat a transexual character.

[Xilizhra]

You start a romance with Cortez by dancing, kissing and talking about hooking up in a club. You start a romance with Traynor by inviting her to use your shower, then barging in and having sex with her while she's having said shower

It's not barging in, she pretty clearly invites you.

[NeonFlux117]

People need to chillax about steve and traynor's "treatment" in ME3. They weren't "unfairly represented", their arcs were quite good.

[Han Shot First]

No.

[Isaidlunch]

Xilizhra wrote...

You start a romance with Cortez by dancing, kissing and talking about hooking up in a club. You start a romance with Traynor by inviting her to use your shower, then barging in and having sex with her while she's having said shower

It's not barging in, she pretty clearly invites you.

Really? Please point out the line, all I heard was her talking about looking nice for a date (yes, obviously with Shepard) and wanting a serious relationship with Shepard. I didn't hear any invite for Shepard to come in and start feeling her up.

[TheBlackBaron]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Does Aveline's character arc put her into "the straight character" territory because it's about the loss of her husband and her moving on with her life? No, it would be absurd to suggest that. It's likewise absurd to suggest that Steve's arc is about his gayness. His arc would be exactly the same if it was a wife; you just notice it because it being a husband is not the norm. But if people can't see past "his loved one had a peener" than that's their fault, not BioWare's. Steve doesn't have at-length discussions about "when he knew" or what it was like to be gay in the world or when they got married and what the social climate is like, because as far as I can tell no one gives a crap in the ME universe anymore. That Steve's loved one is also a man is besides the point of his character arc, and is moreover presented in a very matter of fact, not an issue or topic of discussion-type of way.

Please. It's been a while since I played DA2, but Aveline's husband is at best only a small part of her arc. What is the primary thrust of her story? Becoming Captain of the Guard, working through her issues about protecting people, living up to her father's expectations ("Well Done Daughter Girl", as TV Tropes puts it). 

What is the primary thrust of Steve's character arc? Getting over his dead husband. And it then ends with him in a bar with Shepard, with a romance option. There's literally nothing else to it. It's a half-assed version of Carth Syndrome, except even Carth wound up getting some character development that went beyond "I'm over it now, we'll bang, okay?"

You can chalk this up to lack of time or writing or whatever, but that fact remains. The only other person we even see him interact with is James. He exists in a near vacuum for the purpose of being a romance option. 

Do you want examples of how to handle a gay romance without the characters falling into the "the gay character" trap? Sam suffers from the same lack of writing problem, really, but in her case her arc is about her finding her role on the ship and getting out of the lab and into the field. Leliana's is about confronting her past and a life she left behind (and also demonstrates a good way of including a homosexual relationship in a character's past without it taking over everything - little would have changed about Leliana's story if Marjorlaine had simply been a mentor instead of also her lover). Zevrann's is about coming to grips with his betrayal of a friend/lover and his death wish. That's actualy remarkably similar to Steve's, except Zevrann actually has more than one conversation besides "Have I mentioned that my husband died and I'm quite upset about that and I don't relax at all because of it?"

EDIT: You know what, I'll tl;dr this. Bioware made the awful decision to go with Carth Syndrome for Steve's story, then boiled away everything else from prior instances so that nothing remains besides the dead significant other. -That- is what makes it bad writing, and -that- is what reduces Steve to little more than "the gay character". 

Modifié par TheBlackBaron, 26 octobre 2013 - 05:35 .

[David7204]

Ridiculous. Is that why Steve is given dialogue at the start of pretty much every mission? Because 'he exists for the purpose of being a romance option'?

Is that also the reason why Steve has gotten a positive reception, despite very few players romancing him? Because he's a character that exists for the purpose of romance and has no other redeemable content? 

Modifié par David7204, 26 octobre 2013 - 05:43 .

[dreamgazer]

Eh, I just look at Steve as an nice-guy gear head struggling with the loss of his SO during the war, since none of my Shepards have any interest in romance with him. And I like him well enough on those terms, as well as his rapport with Vega.

Modifié par dreamgazer, 26 octobre 2013 - 06:58 .

[TheBlackBaron]

David7204 wrote...

Ridiculous. Is that why Steve is given dialogue at the start of pretty much every mission? Because 'he exists for the purpose of being a romance option'?

Yes, because reporting that the shuttle is about to land while expositing on the ground conditions is oh so very important characterization, Davey. It's so very revealing when he tells me that the LZ is getting swarmed.

Modifié par TheBlackBaron, 26 octobre 2013 - 05:48 .

[David7204]

And now we've moved on to the pathetic and tedious 'heap of sand' argument. Perhaps you should give me a wordcount of how many words it takes to become characterization? Or define the point at where dialogue suddenly stops becoming ambient and starts becoming meaningful? I'm curious to know what exactly the limit is of when dialogue suddenly means something. You certainly seem to know, don't you?

[TheBlackBaron]

dreamgazer wrote...

Eh, I just look at Steve as an nice-guy gear head struggling with the loss of his SO during the war, since none of my Shepards have any interesting in romance with him. And I like him well enough on those terms, as well as his rapport with Vega.

Which is fine, I'm not meaning to say this his character is irredemable. I like the rapport with James too. That doesn't really take away the other issues, though. 

Filament wrote...

I'm pretty sure there were quite a few Steversations that didn't involve his dead husband. He had something new to say after a good number of missions. They may not develop his 'arc,' being more commentary on your own adventures (and what little help he provides with his shuttling), but I'm not sure every character needs a grand arc of spiritual enlightenment to become fully realized. Some Pokemon never evolve.

I find that agreeable, but it does circle back around to his character arc being a cut-down Carth Syndrome. Other characters have had well written stories that aren't grand tales of enlightenment but are nonethless dynamic.

David7204 wrote...

And now we've moved on to the pathetic and tedious 'heap of sand' argument. Perhaps you should give me a wordcount of how many words it takes to become characterization? Or define the point at where dialogue suddenly stops becoming ambient and starts becoming meaningful? I'm curious to know what exactly the limit is of when dialogue suddenly means something. You certainly seem to know, don't you?

I don't know, Davey, perhaps you should tell me how meaningful "Hang on tight, we're heading in" was, since evidently you regard shuttle dialog as being an important part of Steve's role (which would be fairly damning if it you were right, but thankfully you're not).