303 réponses à ce sujet

[AlexJK]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

So give the sex scenes the axe so they can streamline the romances more? Yeah that's totally reasonable <_<

My point, cryptic though it was, is that the romance plots aren't/shouldn't be about the "animations". Obviously you disagree.

[Tric]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

It makes no sense to me that every single person in Thedas be Bisexual. Having 1 or 2 party members who are Bi is one thing, but to have all romances be accessible to all genders is pretty stupid. It does cheapen the romance for a lot of people, whether some want to admit it or not.

But we don't know every single person in Thedas. In DA2 we know 7 people, 9 if we count the siblings and more if we count non-companion NPCs, of all of these 2 are bisexual and two never tell us of their sexuality.

Regardless of that more than 2 bisexuals in a group of seven is hardly unrealistic, the group formed by my closest friends include a lot more bi and non-heterosexual people than straight.

fchopin wrote...
I did not even know about Anders in Awakening as i did not play the game till i played DA2.
Surprisingly i liked Anders in Awakening and have no idea what they did to him in DA2 as he is a completely different person in DA2. So no this has nothing to do with Anders but with cheap NPC’s that are created just for self gratification.
People have been criticizing The Witcher in the past for cheap sex but i think the problem is with Bioware. It is time Bioware shows as that they can create a good story without cheap tricks.

Off-topic.
Anders's change could be due his possession by Justice, both having influenced each others' personalities.

On-topic.
"Playersexual" romances are a lot more about inclusivity and resources than self-gratification though, while some of the ones in The Witcher aren't romances at all but one night stands.

Many people don't romance BW companions just to sleep with them but for the romance storyline itself or for their characters to strike a romantic relationship with their favourite characters, and all characters being open to any gender allows for more choices for everyone.

So, in a way, yes, it is a cheap trick, an easy and cheap way to allow people more options but I don't see how it makes the characters inconsistent nor turns their romance into cheap sex.

[mikeymoonshine]

I am not massively fussed on how they do it but I don't get the arguments against it.

Whatever way they do it they will be using resources just to please players over using them on the story and however they do it they are going to be pandering to some group of people.

Why would any of your companions want to romance you? The fact of the matter is their character has been altered to suit the player no matter what their orientation is.

[fchopin]

SomethingSome wrote...
So, in a way, yes, it is a cheap trick, an easy and cheap way to allow people more options but I don't see how it makes the characters inconsistent nor turns their romance into cheap sex.

You can not follow two masters, you either go for story and good developed characters or for cheap romances like in DA2.

[AlexJK]

fchopin wrote...

You can not follow two masters, you either go for story and good developed characters or for cheap romances like in DA2.

What is it, exactly, about the playersexual issue which means that DA2 companions are not "good developed"? Because as far as I can see, the only difference if, say, Merrill were a straight-only romance would be that female Hawke's advances would be rebuffed. That's it. The only change. How would that change Merrill's character development?

[Tric]

What makes the romances in DA2 cheap though? They had more variety than DAO's due to the friendship/rivalry status.

I found the characters in DA2 perfectly well developed and don't really see how making their romances exclusive to one gender would make them better.

[fchopin]

AlexJK wrote...

fchopin wrote...

You can not follow two masters, you either go for story and good developed characters or for cheap romances like in DA2.

What is it, exactly, about the playersexual issue which means that DA2 companions are not "good developed"? Because as far as I can see, the only difference if, say, Merrill were a straight-only romance would be that female Hawke's advances would be rebuffed. That's it. The only change. How would that change Merrill's character development?

For me a good developed character or NPC is a character that has a set personality and sexuality whatever it is. The character should have some reason to be in the game as he or she is part of the story in some way. The character can have a great influence on the plot or less depending on what the writer i trying to do. That for me is a good character and does not matter if i like him or her as there is a reason for the characters existence.
If a NPC character changes in personality or sexuality depending on player PC selection then the NPC no longer has a set character or sexuality as that person can no longer be trusted, the character has become a cheap character and only exist for player’s gratification.
 I want NPC’s to have their own beliefs and disagree with the player character and not follow if it contradicts with his or her own personal beliefs.

For me the DA2 romances were the worst ever.

[Andraste_Reborn]

If a NPC character changes in personality or sexuality depending on player PC selection then the NPC no longer has a set character or sexuality as that person can no longer be trusted, the character has become a cheap character and only exist for player’s gratification.
I want NPC’s to have their own beliefs and disagree with the player character and not follow if it contradicts with his or her own personal beliefs.

For me the DA2 romances were the worst ever.

That's all very well, but I don't see how Alistair's willingness to sleep with any character who happens to be female (as long as she feeds him enough cake) is any better than Fenris and Merrill and possibly Anders being player-sexual.

It makes sense that Morrigan would be inclined to seduce the Warden given why she's on the expedition in the first place. However, the fact that Alistair only cares about whether or not you have a vagina and not about how many people you murderknifed and whether or not you're a bloodmage is just stupid. That strained my credulity a lot more than having four bisexuals in the same room.

I'd be all in favour of a game where the love interests care more about your characters actions and whether they agree with them. (DA2 was actually a step in the right direction, IMHO, since at least the characters can acknowledge ideological disagreement instead of being bought off with shiny objects.)

[Veruin]

So, do people forget that gifts were optional and you could just sell them? Or were the mean gifts holding a gun to your head and forced you to give them away?

[The Elder King]

@Andrastee: I agree that the DAO system is broken by the gifts (though as Veruin pointed out, you're not forced to give them gifts and can sell them and basing the relationship only by the dialogues), and that it doesn't recognize ideological problems (not that DA2 is that better, since rival Anders believing that my character is a anti-mage templar lover is ridicolous), but I don't understand how Alistair's preferences in women is related at all. And Morrigan didn't make more sense, becuase she never hit on Alistair even with female Wardens (which is what she should do, based on your logic). The reason she doesn't show interest in women is because she's not interested in them.

[Tric]

Pardon me for splitting your post, I was finding it a bit confusing and maybe this way I'll be able to understand what you mean better.

fchopin wrote...
For me a good developed character or NPC is a character that has a set personality and sexuality whatever it is.

I understand your point about a set personality although we must be careful to distinguish set personality from static personality, a character with a set personality may still change.

The character should have some reason to be in the game as he or she is part of the story in some way. The character can have a great influence on the plot or less depending on what the writer i trying to do. That for me is a good character and does not matter if i like him or her as there is a reason for the characters existence.

Yes, agreed. Although I don't believe any of the characters has been put into any of the games just because or just for the romance but because the writers believe they have something to add to the main story.

If a NPC character changes in personality or sexuality depending on player PC selection then the NPC no longer has a set character or sexuality as that person can no longer be trusted, the character has become a cheap character and only exist for player’s gratification. I want NPC’s to have their own beliefs and disagree with the player character and not follow if it contradicts with his or her own personal beliefs.

Here is where you lose me again. What you say works perfectly fine when talking about personalities but has little to nothing to do with sexuality.
A character open to PCs of any gender isn't more likely to go against their set beliefs than one that's exclusive.



@hhh89
I believe Andrastee was trying to demonstrate how little would change if Alistair and Morrigan were open to both genders.

Modifié par SomethingSome, 18 février 2014 - 02:35 .

[phantomrachie]

Yes i know that NPC’s are not real people same as movie characters are not real people so what are you trying to say. By changing someone’s personality you make them cheap and irrelevant.

It takes tragic events or something special to change people even if writers don’t like to admit it.

They've only changed if you meta game not in your playthrough. For example I only play LadyHawk so Anders has never told me that he used to date Karl and therefore I never knew whether he was bi, straight or gay because I always romance Isabela.

The same goes for Fenris and Merrill; if you don't romance them or don't romance them with a certain gender you'd never know ingame that they swung that way.

I don't think making someone player sexual changes their character from playthrough to playthrough - their character remains the same except in some playthroughs they are straight/bi/gay and in others you don't
know, as only Isabela brings up her sexuality without you romancing her.

Their personality only changes depending on if you have a friendship or rivalry and that is more a reaction to their relationship with Hawk than anything else; plus it happens with non romanceable characters too.

Are player-sexual characters perfect? No, but they are a great way to get the most number of romances out of a small cast of characters. I much prefer player-sexual to the 2 Straight, 2 Bi of DA:O

Modifié par phantomrachie, 18 février 2014 - 02:33 .

[CuriousArtemis]

JasonPogo wrote...

What I mean is I hope the romance will play out differently if you are a man or a women.  It is kinda annoying when the only difference is the personal pronoun used in conversations.  It would also greatly increase replayability and give you an incentive to play the game through as the other sex. 

It doesn't make sense to me, a non-gender identifying person, why a romance should play out differently based on the PC's sex. But I can see how it might really matter to someone who very strongly identifies as a particular gender. Still, I have to say I'm against it. I don't want my PC treated differently just because she's a woman, or just because he's a man. I did not even like the few differences that existed in DA2. Merrill talks to Hawke about having children if he's a guy, for instance, but doesn't broach the subject with Hawke if she's a woman. Same with Anders.

Probably the worst one in the whole game is the bizarre "Is it because I'm a man?" dialogue option after the Fenris romance. I found that really weird and repulsive. Sure, Hawke. He pined after you, made out with you, and just had sex with you, but he's not into guys. Sure.

I see above me people are still having the (let's face it) stupid argument of "sexuality = personality." This makes me so sad. But there are people trying to preach the truth. This makes me happy! I simply must bow out of that debate after having it some 65 times perviously here on the BSN. 

[phantomrachie]

motomotogirl wrote...

JasonPogo wrote...

What I mean is I hope the romance will play out differently if you are a man or a women.  It is kinda annoying when the only difference is the personal pronoun used in conversations.  It would also greatly increase replayability and give you an incentive to play the game through as the other sex. 

It doesn't make sense to me, a non-gender identifying person, why a romance should play out differently based on the PC's sex. But I can see how it might really matter to someone who very strongly identifies as a particular gender. Still, I have to say I'm against it. I don't want my PC treated differently just because she's a woman, or just because he's a man. I did not even like the few differences that existed in DA2. Merrill talks to Hawke about having children if he's a guy, for instance, but doesn't broach the subject with Hawke if she's a woman. Same with Anders.

Probably the worst one in the whole game is the bizarre "Is it because I'm a man?" dialogue option after the Fenris romance. I found that really weird and repulsive. Sure, Hawke. He pined after you, made out with you, and just had sex with you, but he's not into guys. Sure.

I see above me people are still having the (let's face it) stupid argument of "sexuality = personality." This makes me so sad. But there are people trying to preach the truth. This makes me happy! I simply must bow out of that debate after having it some 65 times perviously here on the BSN. 

I agree- I don't want much gender specific dialogue with player-sexual romances. The odd reference is ok, where it makes sense,Merrill talking about children, Isabela and her fertility charm but I would hate for it to be referenced too often. Sexuality doesn't equal personality.

I think it would make much more sense for some reactivity around class or personality,if you’re an aggressive blood mage why would Cullen romance you? (Please notethis doesn't confirm Cullen as in DA:I or a romance, he is just an example)

Edit:Formatting update

Modifié par phantomrachie, 18 février 2014 - 02:59 .

[fchopin]

Andrastee wrote...

That's all very well, but I don't see how Alistair's willingness to sleep with any character who happens to be female (as long as she feeds him enough cake) is any better than Fenris and Merrill and possibly Anders being player-sexual.

It makes sense that Morrigan would be inclined to seduce the Warden given why she's on the expedition in the first place. However, the fact that Alistair only cares about whether or not you have a vagina and not about how many people you murderknifed and whether or not you're a bloodmage is just stupid. That strained my credulity a lot more than having four bisexuals in the same room.

I'd be all in favour of a game where the love interests care more about your characters actions and whether they agree with them. (DA2 was actually a step in the right direction, IMHO, since at least the characters can acknowledge ideological disagreement instead of being bought off with shiny objects.)

Sorry for the late reply but i had to pop in to the dentist.
I agree with you that class and race should play a part in how characters behave and that DAO was not perfect but hopefully they fix this in DAI. I personally want different characters with different sexualities so there is variation in the game, i want characters to have different beliefs and sexualities to make the game interesting.
Variation is the stuff of life and not sameness for all.
Some people say that we should all have equal amounts of partners but that will never be possible as bisexuals will always have more options than myself as i like girls.

[ElitePinecone]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

It makes no sense to me that every single person in Thedas be Bisexual. Having 1 or 2 party members who are Bi is one thing, but to have all romances be accessible to all genders is pretty stupid. It does cheapen the romance for a lot of people, whether some want to admit it or not.

But every single person in Thedas isn't bisexual. Every single person in the party isn't even bisexual.

At most, it's four companions out of nine, and you have to play the game at least twice to even find out they're available for the other gender. 

For as many people who you suggest feel that the romances are cheapened, I would argue that there are just as many fans who are pleased that they had more than one option.

If Bioware are going to stick with four romancable characters, two of each gender, then opening all of them up to each gender of Inquisitor is the only way to guarantee that all players have more than one character to choose from. They could make 6 LIs, or 8, but that seems like an order of magnitude more work, and with a greater cost - which would detract from other important areas of the game.

Ensuring that everyone has more than one option for LI seems only fair, and I would suggest that this fairness more than outweighs your sense of them being cheapened. Nothing is lost when a character who you're romancing is romanced by someone of the same gender in another universe, after all.

[Annie_Dear]

Dabrikishaw wrote...

Starting up another one of these threads a mere 3 hours after the last one was just closed doesn't strike me as a good idea.

http://www.google.co...392822569116372

What's the worst thing that could happen? *looks at thread* Oh...

[CybAnt1]

Oh come on, these don't usually get locked until around p.13 or so.

Still plenty of time. 

Modifié par CybAnt1, 18 février 2014 - 03:14 .

[fchopin]

ElitePinecone wrote...
Nothing is lost when a character who you're romancing is romanced by someone of the same gender in another universe, after all.

We are not playing in another multi universe, we are playing in the same universe.

[Maclimes]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And LadyHawke.

She turns into a bird?

[Tric]

fchopin wrote...

Andrastee wrote...
That's all very well, but I don't see how Alistair's willingness to sleep with any character who happens to be female (as long as she feeds him enough cake) is any better than Fenris and Merrill and possibly Anders being player-sexual.

It makes sense that Morrigan would be inclined to seduce the Warden given why she's on the expedition in the first place. However, the fact that Alistair only cares about whether or not you have a vagina and not about how many people you murderknifed and whether or not you're a bloodmage is just stupid. That strained my credulity a lot more than having four bisexuals in the same room.

I'd be all in favour of a game where the love interests care more about your characters actions and whether they agree with them. (DA2 was actually a step in the right direction, IMHO, since at least the characters can acknowledge ideological disagreement instead of being bought off with shiny objects.)

Sorry for the late reply but i had to pop in to the dentist.
I agree with you that class and race should play a part in how characters behave and that DAO was not perfect but hopefully they fix this in DAI. I personally want different characters with different sexualities so there is variation in the game, i want characters to have different beliefs and sexualities to make the game interesting.
Variation is the stuff of life and not sameness for all.
Some people say that we should all have equal amounts of partners but that will never be possible as bisexuals will always have more options than myself as i like girls.

That's not what you were saying though. You were saying that characters open to both genders were "cheap" and "inconsistent", something you still haven't been able to explain without the incorrect premise that personality is the same as sexuality.
More options (and reactivity) are always great, and it'd be great to see more sexualities represented in the game but for this one would need to increase the number of love interests to, at least, 6, three of each gender and two gay/bi/straight.
But if the number of LIs is 4 like in DAO and DA2 (I'm not counting Sebastian due to his DLC status) that'd mean that gay characters/players would have less choices since they'd probably follow the DAO model. Something I would very much prefer to see vanish.


Buuuuuuuut this is actually off topic since the OP was asking for romances to have changes dependent on gender irregardless of whether they're open to multiple genders or not, to which I repeat: I'd rather see reactivity to character choices and specializations than gender.

Annie_Dear wrote...

Dabrikishaw wrote...

Starting up another one of these threads a mere 3 hours after the last one was just closed doesn't strike me as a good idea.

What's the worst thing that could happen? *looks at thread* Oh...

 This thread is actually very tame compared to others I've seen, pleasant even.


*editing because I'm a butt that can't type.

Modifié par SomethingSome, 18 février 2014 - 03:33 .

[ElitePinecone]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...
I wanted to romance Traynor in ME3, but she was gay. See I couldn't always get my way in that game, and it was for the better. It made me respect her and the game more.

It's important to remember that the ME and DA teams are creatively very different, and will come up with completely different ways of handling this issue. They also face different pressures.

ME, for example, had no male same-sex romances for two games, its sole female same-sex romance in ME2 was with a character who was used as the butt of jokes, and the dev team repeatedly denied that a relationship between a human female and Liara even counted as a same-sex romance. 

In that context, I don't think it's that surprising that - finally - two characters in ME3 who could be same-sex romanced were exclusively gay and lesbian. That still left male Shepards with precisely two male love interests for the entire series (versus five or seven female LIs, if you count Samara and Kelly), and female Shepards with three females (versus four or more males). 

The system in ME3 would be awesome if it were consistently applied, but the inclusion of a gay and lesbian character feels more like Bioware trying to make up for their previous absence, at the literal last possible minute. Even then, those two characters were Normandy crewmembers, rather than full squadmates - would the team be willing to invest resources in a squadmate LI that was exclusively available to one gender of protagonist?

My point is: I think Traynor and Cortez were special cases, and I don't think that logic can or should be applied to DA. One series has a history of almost completely ignoring gay and lesbian content, and the other series has done a pretty good job so far of including it.

[phantomrachie]

fchopin wrote...

ElitePinecone wrote...
Nothing is lost when a character who you're romancing is romanced by someone of the same gender in another universe, after all.

We are not playing in another multi universe, we are playing in the same universe.

Each player plays DA in a slightly or extremely differet way; so we're not all playing in the same universe as different players make all sorts of choices that affect the DA universe in different ways. Even multiple playthroughs done by the same person might be different and so each is a different universe.  Player-sexual characters add more choice; in DA:O a lesbian Warden had 1 choice in DA2 a lesbian Hawke had 2 and a straight female Warden had 2 choices in DA:O and s straight female Hawke 2 choices in DA2 - so the lesibian gets 1 more romance option and the straight female keeps the 2 they had. It's a much fairer system and I think they should keep it unless they add 2 more romances

[esper]

motomotogirl wrote...

JasonPogo wrote...

What I mean is I hope the romance will play out differently if you are a man or a women.  It is kinda annoying when the only difference is the personal pronoun used in conversations.  It would also greatly increase replayability and give you an incentive to play the game through as the other sex. 

It doesn't make sense to me, a non-gender identifying person, why a romance should play out differently based on the PC's sex. But I can see how it might really matter to someone who very strongly identifies as a particular gender. Still, I have to say I'm against it. I don't want my PC treated differently just because she's a woman, or just because he's a man. I did not even like the few differences that existed in DA2. Merrill talks to Hawke about having children if he's a guy, for instance, but doesn't broach the subject with Hawke if she's a woman. Same with Anders.

Probably the worst one in the whole game is the bizarre "Is it because I'm a man?" dialogue option after the Fenris romance. I found that really weird and repulsive. Sure, Hawke. He pined after you, made out with you, and just had sex with you, but he's not into guys. Sure.

I see above me people are still having the (let's face it) stupid argument of "sexuality = personality." This makes me so sad. But there are people trying to preach the truth. This makes me happy! I simply must bow out of that debate after having it some 65 times perviously here on the BSN. 

Wait that happens?  I have never had a male Hawke so I will take your word for it, but... wow... That's...

Anyway I agree with you, I think that the level of difference da2 had was enough. Subtle differences where they make sense (such as Anders and Merrill briefly touching children in with the non same sex options), but not too differenciated. In fact it irked me a little that Anders had so wildly different approach to female and male Hawke.

For the last part. For some people sexuality is a hughe part of their personality. Fictional example in Isabella, but for most people it is just something there is or isn't.

[ElitePinecone]

fchopin wrote...

ElitePinecone wrote...
Nothing is lost when a character who you're romancing is romanced by someone of the same gender in another universe, after all.

We are not playing in another multi universe, we are playing in the same universe.

Noooope. My game is not your game, and my game where Hawke romanced Anders isn't the same universe as my game where Hawke romanced Isabela, or your game where Hawke romanced Merril, or someone else's game where they romanced Fenris. They're parallel worldstates which will never meet.

You can finish a game, romance a character, and never know that they'd be open to a romance with a different gender of the protagonist. Your character wouldn't know (because if the other gender was around to test it they wouldn't exist) and the boundary of one playthrough ends exactly where the other one begins. Unless you deliberately go and check, it's possible that you'd have no idea what would happen outside the boundaries of what you've played through. 

And again: what is lost when a character you're romanced is romanced by someone else in a parallel universe? It doesn't diminish the reality of your own universe. The potential for Anders to romance maleHawke in one universe is irrelevant, if your Hawke is female - because they'll never exist simultaneously.