1875 réponses à ce sujet

[Xilizhra]

He's also talking about characters who are potential LIs

I.e. one of the most arbitrary and non-story-related characteristics imaginable?

[AresKeith]

to be fair though, looking at DA2's development time they probably didn't have enough resources to begin with

[Rainbow Wyvern]

I find it funny that some people make a big deal out of 'playersexuality'. Does it really offend you so much to know that all LIs are available to both genders? It's a video game. Everything about video games is fanservice. It can't hurt to give someone more options for romance. It does hurt to restrict options, leaving someone, somewhere with 1 choice.

The characters do still retain a sexuality; it just differs depending on the gender of the protagonist. The argument that they basically become thralls with no personality just there for the player to have sex with is hilarious, and stupid. They still have their personality, they still have their motives, etc; the only thing that changes is that they're available for any protagonist. 

Sexuality is not a defining personality trait for everyone. For some, it is. For some, it is not. I am not defined by my bisexuality, but I could say some of my relatives are defined by their sexuality.

[jncicesp]

He's also talking about characters who are potential LIs

The only reason they arnt interested is because of gender? Cutting it out seems more lazy then adding it in.

[Ianamus]

I find it funny that some people make a big deal out of 'playersexuality'. Does it really offend you so much to know that all LIs are available to both genders? It's a video game. Everything about video games is fanservice. It can't hurt to give someone more options for romance. It does hurt to restrict options, leaving someone, somewhere with 1 choice.

The characters do still retain a sexuality; it just differs depending on the gender of the protagonist. The argument that they basically become thralls with no personality just there for the player to have sex with is hilarious, and stupid. They still have their personality, they still have their motives, etc; the only thing that changes is that they're available for any protagonist. 

Sexuality is not a defining personality trait for everyone. For some, it is. For some, it is not. I am not defined by my bisexuality, but I could say some of my relatives are defined by their sexuality.

 

Imagine if Vivienne or Isabela had a dark skin tone if you chose a player character with a dark skin tone but were white if you made a protagonist who is white. They are the same character, their skin tone doesn't define them, right? So what's the problem? 

 

It's not about them being the players sexual thralls, it's about taking what are intrinsic aspects of a person, the traits we are all born with and live with on a daily basis, and having them change as easily as the breeze depending on what gender the player chooses to play. 

[AresKeith]

The only reason they arnt interested is because of gender? Cutting it out seems more lazy then adding it in.

And what's wrong with that other than players not wanting to miss out on content because don't wanna play a different gender on a new playthrough?

I mean sure there should be to it than that, but that doesn't mean they should cut out gender

[KaiserShep]

It's not about them being the players sexual thralls, it's about taking what are intrinsic aspects of a person, the traits we are all born with and live with on a daily basis, and having them change as easily as the breeze depending on what gender the player chooses to play. 

 

Off-topic, but "player sexual thralls" sounds like it could be a song title.

[Lulupab]

Although many players really like the idea of romance, David Gaider and Cameron have said that romance itself is a fanservice and it will never impact the game. At best it adds some dialogues to the game. Taking that in mind it makes a lot of sense to try to satisfy as many fans as possible with playersexual route. 

 

http://www.vg247.com...ge-of-equality/

[Rainbow Wyvern]

Imagine if Vivienne or Isabela had a dark skintone if you chose a player character with a dark skin tone but were white if you made a protagonist who is white. They are the same character, their skin tone doesn't define them, right? So what's the problem? 

 

It's not about them being the players sexual thralls, it's about taking what are intrinsic aspects of a person, the traits we are all born with and live with on a daily basis, and making them change as easily as the breeze depending on what gender the player chooses to play. 

Um. On your first point... No. Changing their skintone would be wrong. It also makes no sense. I can't only be friends with/fall in love with people who are the same skintone as me; but I can only romance those who are attracted to my gender. So that argument... doesn't work.

 

On to the second, sexuality is not a trait some 'are born and live with on a daily basis'. You, and some others on this thread, make it seem as if BioWare is taking the characters' core beliefs, their personalities, and changing it all because lolprotagonist, when in fact this is not the case. They change their sexual orientation to account for the protagonist's gender. If them being attracted to certain naughty-bits is part of their personality, like Isabela, it won't change. They will still flirt with certain genders. Isabela didn't stop flirting with males if you're playing a female Hawke. Her being attracted to dudes n' ladies didn't change. 

If Heterosexual Dude LI #1 flirts with a random lady NPC on your female playthrough, he will still flirt with the random lady NPC in your dude playthrough. Only thing is now he likes dudes and ladies, making him Bisexual Dude LI #1.

 

Any flirting or romancing that is part of their character, outside of the protagonist, stays the same. They do not stop being attracted to certain naughty-bits unless they only express any interest in the protagonist.

 

Anyway that paragraph probably made no sense because I'm freakin' horrible at explaining things.

[jncicesp]

And what's wrong with that other than players not wanting to miss out on content because don't wanna play a different gender on a new playthrough?

I mean sure there should be to it than that, but that doesn't mean they should cut out gender

Isn't that enough? they have romance stories for you to play along with the game. I really don't see one reason to make gender be the deciding factor.

The only thing I keep seeing is people saying that they want different(exclusive) things for different genders.

with 'playersexual' they still can romance certain people with certain genders... little creepy that people need a restriction to tell them who to like.

 

Most of my playtroughs are female if I ever get around to playing as a guy im romancing a guy probably. the more differences Between genders makes want to play it as a guy less.. its more annoying to me.

 

That wont cut out gender it just wont make matter for what characters you can romance. 

[Ianamus]

Um. On your first point... No. Changing their skintone would be wrong. It also makes no sense. I can't only be friends with/fall in love with people who are the same skintone as me; but I can only romance those who are attracted to my gender. So that argument... doesn't work.

 

On to the second, sexuality is not a trait some 'are born and live with on a daily basis'. You, and some others on this thread, make it seem as if BioWare is taking the characters' core beliefs, their personalities, and changing it all because lolprotagonist, when in fact this is not the case. They change their sexual orientation to account for the protagonist's gender. If them being attracted to certain naughty-bits is part of their personality, like Isabela, it won't change. They will still flirt with certain genders. Isabela didn't stop flirting with males if you're playing a female Hawke. Her being attracted to dudes n' ladies didn't change. 

If Heterosexual Dude LI #1 flirts with a random lady NPC on your female playthrough, he will still flirt with the random lady NPC in your dude playthrough. Only thing is now he likes dudes and ladies, making him Bisexual Dude LI #1.

 

Any flirting or romancing that is part of their character, outside of the protagonist, stays the same. They do not stop being attracted to certain naughty-bits unless they only express any interest in the protagonist.

 

Anyway that paragraph probably made no sense because I'm freakin' horrible at explaining things.

 

I think the argument works perfectly. Sexuality is something we're born with/ have no control over, and its a touchy subject with many people for a reason. We've only just reached the point as a society where it's accepted that sexuality is not a choice some people make but something they have no control over, so something that shows a characters sexuality completely changing like "playersexuality" is something I take issue with. Sexuality isn't like clothes that you can take off or swap out depending on the situation, which is what "playersexuality" renders it, it is as tied to you as your ethnicity, gender and personality, regardless of if you feel it defines you or not. 

 

I remember a character in the Mass Effect book series, Hendel, who was stated to be homosexual in the second book and then suddenly attracted to Asari in Deception. It caused a major outcry, and rightly so. 

 

If they want to have four LI's who are bisexual then that's fine, make them bisexual, and write them as bisexual characters. It may not make them any different for the most part than if they were any other orientation, but at least your not treating their sexuality like clothes to be swapped out to fit the occasion. 

[TurretSyndrome]

Here is the difference between ME:3 and the current DA games - having Samantha and Steve as gay didn't reduce the potential LIs for anyone it added to them. So them being gay didn't mean you only had 1 other person to romance. (except if you were a straight femshep who had left Kaidan to die - then you were fecked)

 

I would much prefer a mix of LIs 2:2:2 but if we can't have that then it is better to have "player-sexual" content because then everyone has a choice.

 

In DA: O if you wanted a lesbian romance - you had one choice, Leliana and if you didn't like her - well tough. In DA:2 there is Merrill and Isabela and in ME:3 there is Liara and Samantha. 

 

In most games with romances - you have to play it straight because the plot has decided who you are going to romance. It is so nice to have a same sex choice in a game and it's even better when you have a choice of people to romance. 

 

Think of it this way; imagine if in most games you've ever played the romance was always same sex, and then all of a sudden you played a bioware game with a well written hetrosexual romance. You'd be delighted right? but then what if you never got a choice of who to romance, if there was only ever 1 hetrosexual person for you to romance. Wouldn't you want more choice?

 

That is what people are asking for and I don't think it is a ridiculous thing to ask for; as long as the characters continue to be well written.

 

As I said - think most people would prefer; 2 straight, 2 bi and 2 gay but if we can't get that due to budget constraints (which is a perfectly acceptable reason) then "player sexaul" provides the same choice to everyone. 

 

It's not laziness, it's being as fair as you can with the resources available. 

 

Meh...  I've said this before but, to me, let's say in future ME or DA games there are no straight or bi female romances, I won't have a problem with that, because to me, consistency and believability are more important than satisfying my fictional world desires. Whether the character is a companion or a support NPC(like Steve) is secondary, because in the end, they're all NPCs with predefined traits. 

 

You referred to Leliana while saying "what if someone didn't like Leliana that much?". My answer to that is "too bad". It's the same answer I gave myself when I found out that Samantha was a lesbian. I didn't have a problem with her being lesbian, even though I was genuinely more interested in her than any of my female companions. In fact,she became a more memorable character to me as a result(like a fruit that I can never have )

 

In the end, the real problem I see here is that people want everything. They want full access to characters regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, interest(since we even see complaints about people wanting non romanciable characters to be romanciable) etc. So if they find any characters in the game they cannot "touch", it immediately becomes a problem. My entire list of conversations I had with people here is to make the point that it is not Bioware's responsibility to solve it. But Bioware is solving it by sacrificing consistency in the game and believability of the characters, by making them all playersexual. That is where I see the problem.

[Rainbow Wyvern]

I think the argument works perfectly. Sexuality is something we're born with/ have no control over, and its a touchy subject with many people for a reason. We've only just reached the point as a society where it's accepted that sexuality is not a choice some people make but something they have no control over, so something that shows a characters sexuality completely changing like "playersexuality" is something I take issue with. Sexuality isn't like clothes that you can take off or swap out depending on the situation, which is what "playersexuality" renders it, it is as tied to you as your ethnicity, gender and personality, regardless of if you feel it defines you or not. 

 

If they want to have four LI's are bisexual then that's fine, make them bisexual, and write them as bisexual characters. It may not make them any different for the most part than if they were any other orientation, but at least your not treating their sexuality like clothes to be swapped out. 

As a non-het living in a house full of homophobes, I know first hand about acceptance of sexuality.

But I still don't find 'playersexuality' offensive. As I mentioned before, it only becomes an issue if you metagame. Your character doesn't know that in an alternate reality Hetero Guy #1 is gay. 

I'd love it if they could do something other than 'playersexuality' but still give everyone equal options. Alas, budgets are not infinite and writing characters can get expensive. So 'playersexuality' it is. 

It's just a video game, and video games, by their very nature are nothing but fanservice. 

[Ispan]

Putting aside my personal feelings on the whole matter, making every character open to any sexual encounter is a bad idea because you take away that characters personality.

 

It doesn't take away their personality.  Sexuality is a part of who a person is.  They might be promiscuous, flirty, chaste, modest, monogamous, loyal, shy, adventurous, reserved etc when it comes to their sexuality regardless of which gender it's directed at.  The way each character's romance plays out is based on their personality.  Anders romances differently from Merrill, Isabela and Fenris, just as Morrigan is different from Alistair, Zevran and Leliana.  Its not like there's suddenly one way for romance to play out just because gender was taken out of the equation.

 

The playsexuality aspect of our companions also doesn't change their level of sexual discrimination either.  A portion of our companions feel something romantic toward our PC at some point during the extended period of time they spend with us.  This might be lust, passion, love, or something else entirely depending on the character.  Not every companion is trying to bang everything in sight because they don't have predetermined gender preferences (but some might, if that's who they are).  They fall for one of the most talented, intriguing, BA and IMPORTANT people in all of Thedas.  How is that unbelievable?  We're not Joe Shmoe from a brief encounter in village #214, we're the Warden/Champion/Inquisitor!

[eyezonlyii]

I didn't start playing Bioware games until Mass Effect, so I have no idea about the older ones. However, I will say that as a gay male, I'm mostly ok with their record on romances. 

 

Dragon Age: GOD did I want Alistair, or Sten as a distant second. Zevran did not appeal to me at all, and therefore I didn't romance him, at first anyway. I only did it later for the trophy. So yea, I nrsed a crush on the straight male character, but you know what? I do that in real life. I've had crushes on guys that I knew were totally not into other guys, and I lived. 

 

Mass Effect: Again, I wanted Kaidan. But this time, I was more upset about it. The conversation seemed to be moving in that direction, ever so slowly, and then it just...stopped. I thought maybe I was the only one who felt the underlying tension between he and my Shepard, but my best friend (who's 360 I was playing it on) asked me if I had romanced him yet (I was a few missions behind his character). When I said I couldn't he got confused because the vibe was there, but the content wasn't.

 

ME2: Yea this is where I really felt left out. Straight MShep had all these lovely ladies, Femshep had a few men (and even 1 slightly weird dancing girl!), but my Shep?

No one. and that stung just a little. I mean, I know the point of the game was to stop the Collectors, but I kinda felt like the last kid picked for the team in gym. I mean, I couldn't even get a weird "non-date" like with Kelly. He ended up romancing Jack. Mostly to upset Miranda, but eventually "fell" for her personality.

 

DA2: Again, there were options at least...I mean, Fenris isn't my cup of tea in any way, but it was nice to have more than one. Then there was Anders., who while I liked talking to, and ended up romancing, I just kept staring at the ponytail like "Really?" And yes I know that's superficial as hell, but it wasn't a game breaker or anything. LOL. 

 

ME3: Oh goodness. When I heard that Major Alenko would be returning if he survived Vimire, boy was I excited. Even if Shepard had to nurse a distant crush (again ) because Kaidan was the character I most related to in the story (for some reason) but then WHAT!??!?! he's romancable? For Men too? I'm all in! And I was determined to have Shepard and Kaidan get together like fate demanded. That is...until I met Cortez and Vega. ¡Jesus Cristo los dos hombres son muy calientes! But literally my jaw dropped when I walked in the shuttle bay and that scene played with Cortez listening to Robert. Finally! There was a man, who looked somewhat like me (both darker skinned minorities), who liked men, but wasn't necessarily defined by that trait or was he played up to a ridiculous degree. Though I finished that Shepard in a Kaidan romance, I vowed to go back for Steve. 

 

What my exceptionally long, and intimately embarrassing post is trying to say is this: I'm fine with player sexual characters, because as people said time=money in these things. I'm also ok with predefined characters so long as the ones that are available are written well. In the realms of action/adventure type programming for mass media, LGB characters are typically left out, or their minor side pieces if shown at all. In those cases the majority of portrayals aren't really appealing (to me) and so when it comes to gaming, it's a breath of fresh air to be able to interact in a world where for once, my character gets to save the world with his equally badass manlover. 

[Ianamus]

As a non-het living in a house full of homophobes, I know first hand about acceptance of sexuality.

But I still don't find 'playersexuality' offensive. As I mentioned before, it only becomes an issue if you metagame. Your character doesn't know that in an alternate reality Hetero Guy #1 is gay. 

I'd love it if they could do something other than 'playersexuality' but still give everyone equal options. Alas, budgets are not infinite and writing characters can get expensive. So 'playersexuality' it is. 

It's just a video game, and video games, by their very nature are nothing but fanservice. 

 

It doesn't have to be "playersexuality", they could just make all four LI's bisexual.

 

On a related note: why is it that mods that make Isabela white are so scorned and criticized yet mods that make Alistair available to male wardens are usually met with praise? So changing a characters skin colour to match personal preferences is wrong, but changing a characters sexuality to match your preferences is absolutely fine?

 

It's interesting food for thought. Well, I think it is at least. 

[Rainbow Wyvern]

It doesn't have to be "playersexuality", they could just make all four LI's bisexual.

Then you'd have more people complaining that everyone is bi, and that it's 'unrealistic' even though we have no clue what the most common sexuality in Thedas is. I would be all for all-bi-LIs, but forum rage would be kinda bad.

[Ianamus]

Then you'd have more people complaining that everyone is bi, and that it's 'unrealistic' even though we have no clue what the most common sexuality in Thedas is. I would be all for all-bi-LIs, but forum rage would be kinda bad.

 

It is a bit limiting since it means every LI has to be bisexual by default, but it is far better than making them "playersexual", at least in my opinion, and the best way of giving an equal number of options if 6 LI's aren't viable. As for forum rage: I think "playersexuality" garners just as much hate and rage, if not more.

[AresKeith]

On a related note: why is it that mods that make Isabela white are so scorned and criticized yet mods that make Alistair available to male wardens are usually met with praise? So changing a characters skin colour to match personal preferences is wrong, but changing a characters sexuality to match your preferences is absolutely fine?

It's interesting food for thought. Well, I think it is at least.

A double standard in Bioware's fanbase

[eyezonlyii]

It doesn't have to be "playersexuality", they could just make all four LI's bisexual.

 

On a related note: why is it that mods that make Isabela white are so scorned and criticized yet mods that make Alistair available to male wardens are usually met with praise? So changing a characters skin colour to match personal preferences is wrong, but changing a characters sexuality to match your preferences is absolutely fine?

 

It's interesting food for thought. Well, I think it is at least. 

 

I'm going to attempt this one, so bear with me.

 

I think it's because of the unspoken sentiment that one must be repulsed for some reason by Isabela's appearance in order for someone to want to make her lighter. The term whitewashing comes to mind, especially in entertainment. There are so few PoC in any capacity that it may be seen as "taking one away" so to speak. Whereas changing Alistair to like men doesn't really have that same history because there are so few LGBT protagonists anyway. 

 

Also, changing her skin tone adds nothing to the story, yet changing Alistair's orientation allows for someone to access content and conversations he (or she) wouldn't otherwise get to experience with him. 

 

Just my two cents on the matter anyway.

[Alejandrawrr]

It's not about them being the players sexual thralls, it's about taking what are intrinsic aspects of a person, the traits we are all born with and live with on a daily basis, and having them change as easily as the breeze depending on what gender the player chooses to play. 

This I suspect, is why many of us will never see eye to eye on this issue. Some people like myself, view sexuality a lot more fluid than straight/gay/bi. I look at things like a spectrum, pretty much like the Kinsey Scale (iirc 0-6, with significantly fewer people falling on either extreme than they think). I don't think romancing someone of the same gender automatically makes that person "bisexual", there's a lot of grey area between that and "100% hetero, will never touch a ____ in my life". For me it's more likely that you can have a playthrough in which the PC you are playing as has the option to be the LI's one hypothetical person/condition they would go for outside of their usual sexual preference, which again, I believe a lot more people have in real life than we might think (though a significant portion of these people might not ever actually encounter that person/scenario).

Another thing is that some others seem to think the option simply being there makes the character gay, whereas I always assume that if I don't romance Fenris with a male PC, his romantic attraction to a male simply doesn't exist as far as the narration goes, the only romantic interaction he has outside of that being with Isabela. I never romanced Leliana with a female, so as far as I'm concerned she is not lesbian or interested in females within that particular playthrough. On the other hand, Zevran, Isabela and Anders are bisexual, bisexual, and [not a Kinsey 0] regardless of one's choices in a given playthrough. Some of the people against playersexuality being an option seem to imply that the option being present somehow taints all characters with bisexuality. The only complaint I can agree with regarding it is that unless the character is intended to be canonically attracted the the PC's gender, it shouldn't be too easy to have them hit on the PC in casual friendly conversation.

Of course in a perfect world "playersexuality" wouldn't have to be a thing. If I could have my way both genders would have 1 invariably heterosexual, 1 invariably homosexual, and maybe 2 in-betweens (whether they are bisexual, "heteroflexible" etc). Keeping in mind time and resources though, making everyone playersexual (out of 4 total LIs, that is), while not optimal, seems to be the lesser of two evils.

[Ianamus]

This I suspect, is why many of us will never see eye to eye on this issue. Some people like myself, view sexuality a lot more fluid than straight/gay/bi. I look at things like a spectrum, pretty much like the Kinsey Scale (iirc 0-6, with significantly fewer people falling on either extreme than they think). I don't think romancing someone of the same gender automatically makes that person "bisexual", there's a lot of grey area between that and "100% hetero, will never touch a ____ in my life". For me it's more likely that you can have a playthrough in which the PC you are playing as has the option to be the LI's one hypothetical person/condition they would go for outside of their usual sexual preference, which again, I believe a lot more people have in real life than we might think (though a significant portion of these people might not ever actually encounter that person/scenario).

 

I believe that sexuality exists on a spectrum as well (I should know, since I'm constantly fluctuating around the middle myself), but I still believe that you are what are born with, wherever on the scale that is (or whatever range of the scale you move between). I also view everything in-between as simply varying degrees of Bisexuality.

 

What I'm against is characters flat out not being attracted to men whatsoever if you play as woman but suddenly flirting with you and having had previous relationships with men if choose to play a man. That's not so much about sexuality being fluid, that's just flat out changing it. If someone is shown to be attracted to both genders to some extent, and that extend just changes over the course of the story then that is fluid, and not something I'd have really an issue with. 

 

 

I'm going to attempt this one, so bear with me.

 

I think it's because of the unspoken sentiment that one must be repulsed for some reason by Isabela's appearance in order for someone to want to make her lighter. The term whitewashing comes to mind, especially in entertainment. There are so few PoC in any capacity that it may be seen as "taking one away" so to speak. Whereas changing Alistair to like men doesn't really have that same history because there are so few LGBT protagonists anyway. 

 

Also, changing her skin tone adds nothing to the story, yet changing Alistair's orientation allows for someone to access content and conversations he (or she) wouldn't otherwise get to experience with him. 

 

Just my two cents on the matter anyway.

 

I can see the argument, though I still think its a bit hypocritical. They could simply access the content by creating a female character, but they would prefer it if they could romance him as a male so they alter him to fit their needs, the same way someone who thinks Isabela would be more attractive with white skin but could play her romance anyway is altering her to fit their needs. I'm all for equal options, don't get me wrong, but I do think it is a bit hypocritical to advocate one but complain about the other. 

[phantomrachie]

You referred to Leliana while saying "what if someone didn't like Leliana that much?". My answer to that is "too bad". It's the same answer I gave myself when I found out that Samantha was a lesbian. I didn't have a problem with her being lesbian, even though I was genuinely more interested in her than any of my female companions. In fact,she became a more memorable character to me as a result(like a fruit that I can never have )

 

I agree that if a character is gay or straight then people need to deal with that and it would be ideal if we could have gay, straight and bi companions.

 

Sam was forbidden fruit to your straight maleshep but imagine if you wanted to romance someone and the only other choice you had as straight maleshep was a character you weren't interested  in.  

 

As straight maleshep you had the most romance options in Mass Effect so to say you weren't bothered by Sam being gay is fine but you had other choices. In DA:O all anyone who wanted to have lesbian relationship had was Leliana, there were no other choices.

 

This is very different to the Samantha situation because if you wanted to romance her and couldn't you still had; Ashley, Liara and Tali to choose from.

 

Romances are not part of the main focus in Bioware games and nor should they be. If the DA:I Team went the ME:3 route and allowed you romance non party members then I would love their to be gay and straight characters who I could only romance while playing a certain gender. But if they stick with their trend from the other DA games and have 4 party members as romances then the fairest thing to do is to have them playersexual

[oceanicsurvivor]

 

 

On a related note: why is it that mods that make Isabela white are so scorned and criticized yet mods that make Alistair available to male wardens are usually met with praise? So changing a characters skin colour to match personal preferences is wrong, but changing a characters sexuality to match your preferences is absolutely fine?

 

 

 

Changing Isabela's skin color doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in the context of mass erasure of people of color, the lightening of people of colors skin to be 'more attractive' and a long history of western beauty standards which explicitly and implicitly tell young women of color that their skin color isn't acceptable. Within this social context that we do live in, making a mod like that is flat out racist and contributes to this extremely messed up idea that white=beauty and that women of color aren't beautiful themselves without serious alteration. If you need to change Isabelas skin color to find her attractive or more attractive then you're basing your opinion of her on skin color. There is no way for that not to be racist. Call it personal preference fine, but then youre expressing a racist preference.

 

Making Alistair gay is different. Not unporblematic per se, but less problematic. There is no stigma about being a white straight man. Making him gay doesn't play into any existing stigmas or social constructs we have the way changing Isabelas skin color does. Now, if Alistair were gay and you were making him straight then it would be as problematic as changing Isabela's skin color. This is something that I believe did happen with Traynor and Cortez in ME3. Why is this different, I'm sure it seems hypocritical to some, but it isn't. There are massive stigmas and stereotypes about being gay until someone 'straightens you out' or you find 'the one who made you see reason' and other crap like that. This doesn't exist in the reverse. These are problems that only face minorities who are asked to change to be more like the 'default', white, straight etc. And since these things doen't carry the same cultural weight they aren't the 'same'.

[kukumburr]

I'm all for playersexual or all bisexual or the 2/2/2 split for 6 love interests, I just think it's important to be fair. I mean isn't having defined romanceable companions in itself a sort of playersexuality? You basically have characters that will automatically be attracted to the player character no matter what they look like or what their personality is, but with an added gate of sex preference. There's already nothing realistic about that.

 

Obviously when talking about real people sexuality isn't a choice. But characters written by people are not themselves real people. Everything about a character was a choice made by someone. Should writers strive to make characters more realistic so as to be more believable? Sure, but they will never be able to make a character as complex as a real person. It's not like they can just pour some ink into a machine that simulates genetics and personal history and out pops a character that tells you all about itself. A character's sexuality is always a decision made by someone just like race, gender, etc. So knowing that, I think being fair to the real people playing the game trumps making characters a bit more realistic.