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[Allan Schumacher]

I have long had this idea that there was a passing of the torch from Stanley Woo to you. Given he was one of the most regular developer posters in his time and you both were/are in the QA section.

 

Also with the plushie talk... would you know if Gaider still has that Broodmother plushie on his desk. That thing was about as cute as a Broodmother could ever get... and its still creepy.

 

http://forum.bioware...-my-desk/page-1

 

I was actually thinking about that today.  We have recent new QA testers, and I'm curious if any of them are like "That's Allan from the forums!" like I was with Stan when I started

[Allan Schumacher]

After several people have posted their various thank yous here, I pointed out to the other folks in the cupcake group that we should really have asked those who could not contribute financially to contribute in the nice letters department.  I feel that the sentiment behind the gift and the letters themselves had more impact than the treats for most of the people.  Though the treats surely didn't hurt!

 

Something we'll bear in mind if we ever happen to do this again...

 

The nice thing about the treats is that it represents a willingness to do something more than just talk.  The cost (literally) is higher for you to do it, so it does work as a force multiplier to the nice words.  It's something to make people take notice.  Then, once they are taking notice, they start consuming.  And that's where things have the strongest influence IMO.

[Allan Schumacher]

Removed some offtopic posts.

 

For context, and I would prefer to not see this thread get derailed, there was a group of people that sent us cupcakes in protest of the Mass Effect 3 endings.  Due to the nature of their message, we did not accept them as it did not feel right.

Due to the nature of this message, we had less reservations and were willing to accept them.

 

 

Do not derail this thread further by discussing whether or not the situation with ME3 was good or bad or anything like that.  It's just going to derail the conversation and bring in all sorts of heated parties into the discussion.  I don't want that.

[Allan Schumacher]

No one is suggesting no one can ever be critical toward us.  Sometimes people didn't like things about our games, and it's useful to let us know that.

 

When talking about various issues, however, the primary reason why I (emphasis, me) like to see a variety of perspectives is that if I'm only told how much the effort I made was wrong, it makes me gunshy.  Not in a spiteful "well fine I won't do it at all any more" but more in a "I believe I cannot do this justice without just making more people angry, and I don't want to do that."  I don't like facilitating hostility.  It doesn't even have to be hostility towards me.  I am gunshy towards romances because they cause a lot of fighting because one person is given the character they want, while another is denied and that that just isn't fair, and people get very angry with each other over stuff like this.  So maybe it'd be better to take that content and apply it in a general, non-romance way to flesh out characters?  Though I'm sure people would definitely not like that either   There is a degree of realizing that not everyone is going to be happy with a decision that we make.

 

 

I understand that this is a very privileged perspective when it comes to social issues and effort towards gaming.  I try very hard to not let someone's tone dictate whether or not I should continue reading the critique, because sometimes there's still very excellent points that get made up.  But seeing something like this thread's response does serve as as a point of "the direction we're going in isn't the wrong one."  We may need course corrections.  Or maybe we just veered way off into a jungle and need to back up.  But if I only ever see that I'm doing it wrong, I get confused as to which direction I should be going in (especially since there's so much different directions that we could be going in). 

 

Hearing that we have backers for the current direction lends a degree of psychological validation.  I am still a human being, so despite being a professional I'm not immune to the hangups that human beings make.  Sometimes I recognize it as an avenue for growth (I used to hate it when people called me lazy - but I now better understand what they mean when they say it) for myself.  Other times I have to remember to do things for my own mental health.  Being told I should have been aborted as a fetus so that competent QA would have worked on DAO is firmly in the "not productive in any sense of the matter."  I get angry and defensive, and as such disengage for my own well being.

 

 

It's also problematic because negative things tend to go viral (everyone loves juicy gossip) more effectively than positive things.  So sometimes I actively seek out positive things.  In fact, I started posting on the forum to FIND more positive things since most frequent things I would see was negative towards BioWare (and BioWare fans).  I still post regularly, so you're free to draw your own conclusions as to whether or not I found my search successful.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think at the end of the day, positive reinforcement (and constructive criticism) is always more effective than negative. It's simple, and something to think about next time someone wants to bully another person on the internet over a video game.

 

I actually will make a counterargument to this.  Sometimes being outraged is not only the appropriate response, but probably the most effective.  If we did something grotesquely wrong that was uniformly considered grossly inappropriate, sometimes it's going to make people upset.

Which is why I try to still read stuff even if it seems harsh.  A lot of people being angry is often a good way to draw attention to serious issues.  If we came along and revealed a FemQuisitor and she was something out of DOA Beach Volleyball, I'd expect outrage and serious amounts of frustration and even anger.

 

 

By the same token that feeling that I'm a professional somehow makes me immune to being human, I have to also understand that the fans are human too and also not immune to being emotional in response to decisions we make or things that they see.  It's all about understanding the perspective.

[Allan Schumacher]

In any case, lets deviate from this particular tangent.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm pretty sure this came up earlier but I don't remember the details and big thread is big...

 

How do we reconcile competing desires for how a character is represented in game, particularly physically.  Some are happy that the woman Qunari is not really sexualized (I think that's pretty sweet too).  Perhaps it's my ignorance speaking, but part of me think there's a fine line between making something attractive, and making them unreasonably sexualized.  Especially if we're working within the confines of fixed body types (lets stick within this constraint please, since it's the current reality for Dragon Age haha).

 

That said, I know there are some that are still hoping the characters are distinctly feminine and that some of these people are still women gamers

[Allan Schumacher]

And a complicated one, I think. Because it appears that guys are a bit "easier" to program for.

 
I think guys have an advantage of already having a wide range of body types in games.  There's also the idea that covered doesn't convey too much information about one's build.
 
I do think there's an overabundance of scruffy white dude (if you look at me right now, though, I am totally scruffy white dude haha) among player characters, so I think there's still issues for men.

[Allan Schumacher]

Feminity as in having an outfit sexualized a bit?  Cause my cousin is a female, I think of her as feminine but she is far from being girly girl. Not sure how to answer this question honestly. And since I hadn't shaved in a few days, I am scruffy right now.

 

The concept of being a "lady" for my lack of knowing a better term.  But just in terms of body types.  Is it bad if, say, the elves/humans/dwarves have a body type that is more typically regarded as "traditionally" attractive in response to the Qunari woman's being less so?  Should we be modest across the board?  Allow for variations between the races?

[Allan Schumacher]

What is RF?

[Allan Schumacher]

And I be fairly upset if BioWare included an overweight love interest in their games.

 

Is this an indictment against us, or yourself?  Why would you be upset because there happens to be a love interest you aren't interested in?

 

 

Epic stories generally do not.

 

So some still do?  Excellent!

[Allan Schumacher]

Against you.

 

I disagree.

 

To me it's simply a romanceable character that has traits you don't care for.  I see no reason why a man or woman that happens to have some weight on them cannot be a love interest.  If this makes you angry, then so be it.  I don't consider it a compelling reason not to do it.

[Allan Schumacher]

I honestly would welcome a coward for a companion...  as long as their cowardice doesn't get another member killed the way Upham did in Saving Private Ryan.

 

Slightly off topic but,

 

Cpl Upham's scenes at the end of Saving Private Ryan are some of the most powerful ones of the whole movie though.  His entire sequence showed a couple of very compelling things.

 

Spoiler

War is terrifying.  I identify with Upham because for all of my imagination, I can probably relate/understand his perspective more than anyone else's.  Also that even a German SS soldier isn't a complete and total monster.  He fought and killed the targets that were shooting at him.  When he saw Upham, complete with a gun and laced with ammunition... he spared him.  He knew Upham wasn't a threat, and wouldn't be.  So it's different than the mercy that Upham showed for Steamboat Willie, which was born out of naivety.  By the end, the loss of Upham's innocence is made complete when he sees Willie shooting.  Even shooting the person that spared his life earlier....  The romanticized view shattered, as Upham revealed himself after working up the courage to step out.  Seeing the smile on Willie's face, a jaded and hateful Upham pulls the trigger.

 

Powerful, powerful stuff.  I have nothing but empathy for Cpl Upham's character

[Allan Schumacher]

Please not the Sly one-liners...  please......

 

I'm pretty sure we have a preference towards Schwarzenegger one liners, so you should be safe.

[Allan Schumacher]

If A is worth more than B, B, in comparison must be worth less than A. It has to be.

 

It's plain, simple, utterly inescapable logic. If I value A more, I value B less in comparison.

 

I prefer attractive people. I value them more. In real life, and in fiction. The inevitable, inescapable consequence is that I value unattractive people less in comparison.

 

There's no way around it.

 

I prefer attractive people to.  I think we just have different metrics as to what constitutes attractive.

 

The physical component, for myself, is not a particularly high bar to achieve.  The other components of attraction, however, are significantly more important.

 

And the physical component only really exists for sexual attraction.  The bar is even lower for friends (though I'll concede that cultural influences will likely prevent me from excluding it entirely).

[Allan Schumacher]

They do if they want to be great.

 

Neither you, nor me, nor him, nor anyone else has become or will become great by thinking "I'm just fine and dandy the way I am." Greatness means pushing yourself, and always striving to do better. To be better.

 

That explains the Hobbit.  Or the general hero story trope of being thrust in over your head and still accomplishing great things despite your obvious shortcomings.

 

 

What exactly is it that you're hoping to accomplish in the thread, at this point?  Because it seems like you have the perspective of coming in and telling all these people that what they think and find appealing is wrong, and how you're doing your duty to educate us all on it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Those heroes pretty much always have the option of turning around at some point or persevering. Bilbo could have stayed in the Shire.

But he didn't, and you get arguably one of the most successful hero stories in recent history as a result.  The Hobbit (and Lord of the Rings) are not unique stories.

 

 

I'm just here to try and speak on behalf of what everyone actually does - fill their stories with attractive characters.

 

Elaborate.

[Allan Schumacher]

No different then what you or a meriad of other posters in this same thread are doing.
Simple facts are ugly people don't generate interest in video games for any character unless there is a redeemable feature for that character.
No one wants to play hippo-the horrific hippopotamus as a main character in any video game.

 

No one is suggesting playing "hippo-the horrific hippopotamus" as a main character in any video game.

 

Earl in Toe Jam and Earl was fat, no one seemed to care.  Mario (and Luigi in some games) are both fat.  Probably most successful franchise of all time.

 

Other games wholly let you play as a fat man too.  Some still have fat men as companions as well.

[Allan Schumacher]

Actually doing a quick check here from memory

 

 

Mario

E Honda

The Heavy (and Sasha)

Earl

 

It's actually not THAT difficult to find fat men.  Some of them are ridiculously powerful too.

[Allan Schumacher]

Right...because he kept going when he could have quit...or just not have started at all...

 

Despite not being particularly attractive nor physically fit.

 

You seem to be agreeing with me here that a less than ideal person can be an excellent candidate for doing heroic things now.  Any character could have quit no matter how they looked.

 

 

Well, you look at pretty much any 'epic' story or blockbuster movie, the characters are very attractive. And the people in this thread didn't seem to think there was any good reason why. I was trying to offer a technical explanation of why such a thing was justified.

 

Ehhh, the thread was also compromised when you decided to come in and straight up state that you'd be upset because a love interest may not be as skinny as you like.

 

The problem with your technical explanation is that what we see in the media fuels how we feel.  Which is the exact point of this thread asking for more female inquisitor.

 

There was a video game experiment done where Israeli and Palestinian people played a video game that had them take control of the leaders of each countries.  The control groups were playing the nationality they already were, the experimental group played the other side.  The results of the experimental group showed a lessening of their hatred and more compassion towards the other side.

Another study using the same game (PeaceMaker) picked Israeli's that had a high preference towards Israel and lower tolerance towards Palestine.  The control group played as the Israeli leader - their attitudes did not change.  The experimental group played as the Palestinian leader.  The attitudes towards Palestine were improved, and attitudes towards Israeli's weakened.

 

The game has also been used to explore affecting religious preconceptions and it softens that too.  Almost like maybe we could explore doing some more stuff like that to see if it can't change the way people start to see the world.

[Allan Schumacher]

I would be upset that BioWare might be losing sight of what an epic story is about by using a character design few players - not just me - would find compelling or attractive to satisfy a misguided desire for 'inclusion' or 'realism.' And that further changes of the same vein would perhaps be down the road.

 

I frankly find the concept interesting.  I greatly prefer to challenge established tropes.

 

However, since you decided to reiterate that this character design makes the character not compelling I'll simply state that you've said your piece.  We disagree.  Lets move on.

[Allan Schumacher]

Lets try to keep it on topic please.

[Allan Schumacher]

are you aware of why they might frown upon this sort of thing?

 

Frown upon what sort of thing, in particular?

[Allan Schumacher]

Just the arguments that women should be represented more and whatnot.

 

I can think of many reasons why some might frown upon this sort of thing.  None of them particularly compelling and many of which are ostensibly poor and fueled with all sorts of negative implications.

 

But why might people frown upon this sort of thing?

[Allan Schumacher]

Have you considered that they might just be trying to be honest?

What are they being honest about when they frown on the idea of women playing video games? Are you referring to exclusively the arguments made to support more women in games?
 

I hear a statistic like "Women make up half of video game purchases" and I think to myself there's no way in hell that's true. It sounds to me like something completely dishonest. I don't buy it.

Why not? That I find something surprising needn't make it untrue. Furthermore, why does that number specifically bother you?
 

So yeah, if people feel that way, they're going to scoff at it. They're going to attack it and tear it down. It has nothing to do with opposing women playing video games and everything to do with not liking bad statistics and bad arguments.
 
I cannot seriously imagine anyone being genuinely opposed to the idea of women playing video games. My impression has alway been the opposite is true - that most guys would really prefer more girls to play video games.

I've seen on these very boards posts from posters that feel that women are infringing on one of the last places where it is "safe to be a man that likes manly things."
 
I find the resistance isn't so much from women wanting to play video games, but rather that enough women are now playing video games that they're starting to voice their disapproval towards certain common aspects that they would really prefer to see changed (and some men too, for that matter).