33 réponses à ce sujet

[lane]

i hope its already official that there will be new gays romances !! but there is something i would be so thrilled to see in this new adventure ! i would love to encounter a gay party who is gay by nature and not bisexual !! that would be so hot and more enticing to talk and play with !! (there is enough bisexuals so why not one little sexy man and girl truely gay for once ?! that would be the special touch bioware can add that no one have tried yet

i really wish though you we encounter more gay no-playable characaters in the story ! i mean its always about straight couples (my wife here my husband there ect), but the other random characters in the world never speak of gay love ! as if me and my lover are the only gay couple in dragon age world ! i would love to encounter gay matters !

so i wish i would see that in my new DA ! hope the idea appeal to more~ !

[Allan Schumacher]

Choices are always good, aren't they?

 

I actually find the idea of giving someone the idea of choosing to make an NPC straight when they otherwise would be gay very, very uncomfortable.

[Allan Schumacher]

I dont know, I feel there has so long been a presumed straight until otherwise that the idea someone has to make clear under no certain terms they swing that way. Which is why most of the bisexuals are promiscuous I guess. Because they are not just straight so they must like everyone! And now they have to look the part? act the part?

 

This strikes me as a compelling reason to have set sexualities included from the standpoint of depicting everyone as people - as varied as anyone else - rather than of a particular stereotype.

[Allan Schumacher]

He gets mad because my Hawke wasn't gay and quit the team. That's what? A Gay-Quit then?

 

As stated, this is fundamentally untrue.

 

Given the nature of the topic, please course correct your position.  This is a warning.

[Allan Schumacher]

He just seemed so incredibly masculine, not looking at his appearance. Watching him forcing a male hawke up against a wall only to smooch him afterwards felt awkward to watch. I didn't have much against Anders to be honest, he had that vibe about him, but Fenris just didn't. It might just be me who doesn't really associate gay/bisexual people with dark, broody characters. It just feels so wrong to have Fenris being gay.

 

This convinces me that having Fenris (and characters like him) be gay and bisexual is something we need to do more of.

 

Both gay and straight men can be either masculine or feminine (and it's quite all right for them to be either, as well).

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't hope it convinces you that video games would actually help break these barriers.

 

It definitely does.  Maybe not for you, specifically, but I wouldn't think you're the only person that believes this way.  And I do believe that familiarity and exposure to certain ideas can make some people better understanding of them and, hopefully, less uncomfortable.

 

 

 

 

But I experience that gay and bisexual males have more, obvious feminin traits than masculine, and the masculine traits tend to be more their appearance, rather than their personality.

 

When I read this, I get an implicit undertone that part of having a feminine is being attracted to men, and part of having a masculine personality is being attracted to women. I don't believe this is the case.  Do you think this influences your perception of femininity/masculinity?

[Allan Schumacher]

The bolded is exactly what I was trying to get at. People don't have the right to date someone just because they like them. Characters have the right to turn the pc down for any reason they wish. "I don't swing that way" is a perfectly valid reason.

 

Just to note (coming from the guy that works for a studio that is making set sexuality romanceable characters), in our games you intrinsically cannot date any character that you wish.

 

You're only ever afforded the opportunity to romance a VERY limited number of characters in our game.

[Allan Schumacher]

But they would still show more obvious feminine traits when it comes to their personality.

 

Fenris is violently, aggressive. He is blunt. He shows a lack of empathy. Fenris have been made very masculine and not at all as a person that I have experienced any gay or bisexual male as being. They tend to be far more sensitive, they tend to show far more empathy, they tend to be more gentle.

What makes you think this?

[Allan Schumacher]

Females typically showing more empathy, care, gentleness, all these kinds of more soothing emotions. I would be so bold as to say that it is in our biology, I am not sure what others are taught when it comes to biology, the human brain and general communication, it could be very different and I would like to add that the grades we get here in Denmark is not necessarily the highest on a global level, so I could be absolutely ignorant for all we know.

 

The thing with gay and bisexual people being having more feminine traits than masculine traits however, is what I have experienced so far.

 

(Female bold emphasis mine) 

 

I'm not sure why females/women came up.  The post I quoted was referring to gay and bisexual men.  Since you're talking about biology, however... are you suggesting that a gay man is really more of a woman?  Because that's really how it reads to me with your description....

[Allan Schumacher]

Are you trying to fire up the discussion again?

 

Exception to the rule.

 

 

Just as a note, if there's an exception to the rule it probably means the rule's not valid.  And in case anyone wants to go with "the exception that proves the rule" I want to point out as well that that term is grossly misused.  An exception that proves the rule is an rule that is made obvious due to an exception.  For example: "No Parking on Sundays" is the exception that proves the rule "Parking is allowed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday."

 

 

 

 

Can you list the ones that can't be romanced in DA2? Then list those who can or even try when you don't try to romance them? I bet the first list will be shorter than the second. And Carver/Bethany doesn't count as that would have just been plain sicko romancing little brother/little sister. Now if you were making a Game of Thrones game, I guess you'd have to go there.

 

I will start listing the characters you cannot romance in DA2.  I'll even omit Carver and Bethany.

 

 

Meredith

Ser Agantha

Cullen

Ser Thrask

Gamlen

The Arishok

The Viscount

Wilmod

Mettin

Varnell

Varric

Stroud

Aveline

 

 

And I'm just scratching the surface here.  There are dozens and dozens and dozens of characters we simply do not allow you to romance.  While by contrast, we only allow four (in the base game) that you can romance.  This is inherently unrealistic.  If it were "realistic" I could ask the shop keeper out on a date.  Or a person I meet outside my home.  It's not.  The realism argument isn't particularly compelling because the game isn't an open sandbox where you can say and do anything and whatever you want, due to the nature of how the game is made.  You're only allowed to talk to who we allow.  You're only allowed to go where we let you.  You're only allowed to say what we allow you to say at any given point in time.

 

Within this framework, the "4 bisexuals is unrealistic" is an irrelevant argument.  It means nothing to me because there are so many other lines in the sand that are unrealistic too.  If this bothers you for its lack of realism, I consider it something requiring some self-reflection.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't get this hate for the r-word. I hardly dare even type it, it's come this far.

 

First of all, I don't think that four bisexuals are unrealistic. Or eight. Or whatever. Also, no game will ever be fully realistic.

 

But a game can attempt to *approach* realism.

 

If, in a shooter game, an enemy goes down after, say, one or two hits with a 7.62 battle rifle, then that is relatively realistic within the parameters of a video game.

If the same enemy can eat an entire 20 round magazine of the same type of ammo, then that is relatively unrealistic.

Arguments like "you can't romance everyone because there are only four LIs in the game" are deliberately picking a level of realism that, in absence of unlimited time and resources, a game can never achieve anyway, and from that you conclude that there's no need to even attempt to approach realism in any other aspect.

 

It frames the context by which we make our romance content available.

 

We can't allow any and every person to be available.  If a -mere- 4 people being bisexual is what sets off your "this is unrealistic" radar, I think it needs recalibration.  Because it's not like it means the whole world is bisexual (though really, there's no reason why a fictional one couldn't be)...  it means four people are bisexual.  So when someone says it's not realistic to have 4 bisexual romances, they're giving the impression that the mere presence of 4 bisexuals is inherently unbelievable, which is a huge problem IMO.

 

As you say, we don't have unlimited time and resources.  If we value providing choice for people, it's frustrating to pick and choose the "realism argument."  Seeing you state that my arguments are invalid because no game can be that realistic can be frustrating because to me it seems like the argument can be used just as well towards the person feeling 4 bisexual people is unrealistic.  So why implicitly defend him for his rigid perspective yet call someone like myself out for being too extreme in my application of realism?
 

Because I feel that stating that 4 bisexuals is unrealistic is deliberately picking at a level of realism that is fundamentally incorrect while also ignoring the realities of video game development.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm sorry for butting in Allan, and I apologise if i've completely taken this the wrong way, but when you say "why implicitly defend him for his rigid perspective" are you talking about me? I can't help but feel that way since this entire line of discussion started as a result of you quoting one of my posts. This is confusing to me as I never actually said anything about realism, my whole position has always been "I'll be happy with however you guys decide to do it." I have mentioned in the thread that there are those who hold that perspective, and I also stated that I have no time for that particular argument. 

 

Again, i'm really sorry if i've completely taken this the wrong way.

 

No, it was Gileadan and it's a potential interpretation since it came across as him telling me I'm being too rigid, when I think it's just as valid that the other person was.  So effectively I was asking "why was my position worthy of response, but not others."

 

 

 

I lamented, maybe not very eloquently, the apparent *general* rejection of "realism" as an argument when it comes to videogames. I am under the impression that the basis of the argument goes like this: realism can be used for something bad - like trying exclude certain demographics from equal representation and/or access to game content such as romances - and therefore no type of realism, even in aspects that might be beneficial and not cause harm to anyone (as my "how fast do 7.62 bullets kill" example) should ever be part of a videogame or be used as an argument about video game content.  It's not all black and evil. It can be applied in good ways. It's like the r-word gives people a bite-reflex.

 

Should have known better than touching this, I guess.

 

I do feel that realism has its places in video games.  The combat aspects you describe are great examples (and I tend to prefer it in a lot of my games, actually).

 

Apologies for coming across harsh, but I felt that it was clear that the context of realism in this case was referring to the prevalence of a particular sexual orientation, rather than realism in general.  As such, when bringing up the idea that it seems like a curse word came across as a specific dismissal of the examples that I made, which I felt were framed around romance and sexual orientations.

 

It's possible that that may not have been as clear as I thought.  Would it be appropriate that, unless otherwise stated, we agree that the context of "realism" in this thread be about romantic and sexual attraction/relationships?  I wouldn't consider the idea of combat realism to really be an applicable analogue for this discussion.  Did someone else use it?  I know I did draw comparisons to other unrealistic aspects, but tried to focus it on sexuality and romantic availability.

[Allan Schumacher]

Oh so when I ask for heterosexual romances I'm a bigot, but when people ask for gay only romances they're taking a stand.

 

Got it.

 

Plenty of people resisting the inclusion of homosexual romances purely on the basis of them being homosexual romances.

 

The issue comes from "who is typically advantaged?"  Asking for a heterosexual romance is a bit like asking for graphics.  It's fine to say it, but does it really need to be said?  You're not a bigot for asking for it.

 

 

i sure as hell won't play the game.

 

It's important to always remember this whenever you see some person coming in disparaging people because they would hesitate buying the game because of a lack of homosexual romances.  This happens all the time.

 

When I say I'd be more inclined to have exclusively homosexual relationships,* it's more in response to people that feel that homosexuals shouldn't bother asking for content they'd like, because the game is more than romances.

 

 

* I'm also not in control of who does or does not get romances.  I'm also someone that is fine without romance content, so if I lost heterosexual romances I wouldn't consider it that much of a personal loss - so it's easier for me to give them up.

[Allan Schumacher]

I disagree since I don't see that as Biowares business to push any agenda onto a paying customer.

 

Anything we do is an agenda of some sort, though.

[Allan Schumacher]

The OP is asking for GAY only relationships, because he finds it ''hot''.

 

He's suggesting that straight people do not enjoy the relationship with that person for the sole reason that he finds gay only LIs more ''hot'' when in truth, me playing a hetero and having a relationship with that character would not affect him in the slightest, as this is a single player game.

 

I am calling him out and anyone that supports him for their hypocrisy.

 

The OP is saying they'd like to see more exclusively gay characters in the game.  Because for a lot of people, that type of representation is important to them.

 

It's asking for the equivalent to a character that can only be romanced by a heterosexual (which our games have had a lot of).

 

If I have a character that is a straight male, and another that is a gay male, and they are romanceable, I don't consider this to be an inequitable distribution when it comes to the choices being offered (there may be inequity within the quality, but that's beyond the scope of the OP).

[Allan Schumacher]

According to the Williams Institue of law, the average number of gays, lesbians, transgender, and bisexuals make up 3.8% of the American population. If "Dragon Age: Inqusition" was solely cattering to that demographic, they will lose an exponential amount of money. Straight men will play female characters, so they can play out a fantasy lesbian relationship. Many straight men (not all) could careless about this game being inclusive. Its all about hormones.

 

Also, after failing to gain an audience, the cable channel LogoTV discovered that - gay people do not base their entertainment around homosexuality.

 

...therefore, the overly local supporters of 'alternative storytelling' is in a very-very-very small minority.

 

As a heterosexual man, I don't have issue of the character I play in a game happens to be gay.  As you say, people don't base my entertainment around sexuality.  A good game is a good game, right?

[Allan Schumacher]

I do not, and have never, understood the idea of lesbians being as source of sexual desire. Two beautiful women who have absolutely no interest in having sex with me isn't arousing, it's kind of depressing. The fantasy seems to be about bisexual girls. 

 

I've been teased for not finding lesbians a personally desirable thing purely on the trait of "is someone a lesbian."

[Allan Schumacher]

But this is not at all what I suggested.

The toggle proposed would strictly affect how the NPCs interact with the character, not their very existence. The toggle proposed would just prevent any same sex (or, conversely, opposite sex if the player is so inclined ) romances from being initiated. It does not delete any such characters from the game entirely, like your race toggle implies. So the two ideas are apples and oranges in comparison.

 

Not sure if the benefit is worth the cost.  Setting this up, and the additional scripting and so forth, may not be worth it.  Especially if the existence of this ends up getting construed as allowing erasure, in which case people may not buy the game because they find it disrespectful.

 

Some people get really upset, but I'm not sure if it's significant enough to warrant extra work on our part to allow people to insulate themselves from the content.

[Allan Schumacher]

Is there a cost for an LI off switch ?

 

It should just erase the romance lines from the script making it impossible. 

 

Yes.  Especially in terms of potential risks to stability as additional permutations exist.

 

It may further include writing additional lines for proper context, and all the dependencies that come from there.

 

 

And then there's the opportunity cost.  We could spend our time working on a system to script and support a toggle like this.  Or we could spend that writing and scripting time creating new conversations and narrative points.

[Allan Schumacher]

I always thought a 'toggle' feature sounded easy on paper but not nearly so in practice, so this kind of confirms my suspicions.

 

Most toggle requests are made without an understanding of the system/infrastructure surrounding the actual request, nor potential knock on effects of the request.  Not that they necessarily should.

 

Difficulty levels aren't free either.  I just see them as being a significantly better investment of those resources than something like this.  It's also something we're cognizant of needing to support on the first day of the project.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm not sure why you would need more lines but perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. I'm not talking about an alternate version of the NPC (like with gender in DA2) but rather simply removing NPC's from the LI pool based on the settings.

 

I understand precisely what you're saying.  I'm saying that if we do this, it means that we have to start writing right from the start with this in mind.  It means that we can't make a joking remark later to an NPC that flirted with us because it *might* have been blinked out of existence.  It's an extra type of restriction on our writing for exceptionally dubious and limited benefit.

 

 

 

 

Just like everyone has their own version of the Warden/Hawke/Shepard and no one really cares since they have their own version.

 

Everything exists in a social context.

 

So no, not all toggles are equal.

 

 

At this point this tangent is over.  We're not doing it.  I think it's a bad idea that would ultimately be worse for us financially (even if we could magically do it for free).  I think people understate the effort it would take to do this, as well as the risks that can be done.  I also think that, in general, most people aren't really that bothered by it.  Especially if we're disinclined to have the NPCs flirt with the player character first.

 

It's a giant slippery slope, especially since in many ways LGBT content is expressed via romance content because it often works better in that context because, lets face it, most of the time when we're walking beside someone we don't know what their sexuality is, and we never will know.  I see requesting something like this as equivalent to asking for a toggle to remove prevent me from being talked about racial or religious aspects of a game.  Please prevent/limit me from interacting with a particular minority that I'm not comfortable with interacting in a particular way.  All on the wholly misunderstood auspices that their imagination tells them it shouldn't be difficult to do.

 

 

If someone has issues with being uncomfortable with a particular topic like this, I consider it a personal concern that they will need to reconcile, not us.  Sorry.  If they wish to boycott our game, so be it.  I'm not interested in building insulating chambers because someone may not be comfortable with the notion of a person hitting on them.  I'm not interested in supporting someone's intolerance, nor do I consider it an undermining of my own attempts to be tolerant

 

Discussion over, it's not happening.  Further discussion on this particular topic will likely be deleted because what has been said has already been said.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm still just over here in gay baby jail not seeing the downside to the "playersexual" model DA2 employed.

 

In an RPG, the more options available, the better. It doesn't take me out of the story to hear a ton of "you"s and "Hawke"s while I'm playing and I really wish they had stuck with it...

 

It is SO great to have queer characters in static fiction (books, television, etc.) but in a game I'm specifically playing to be a hundred different heroes (or villains, whatever the options allow), I just want as many options as can possibly be made available.

 

I am very happy we're having expressly queer characters and love interests with this model but I'm just a big fan of the PS model, I guess.

 

Options is an interesting perspective.  I agree that options are great.  Options can mean different things to different people, however.  For some, having 4 romance characters is less options than having 6 (if we go with the assumed 2/2/2 - this isn't a confirmation of that btw).

 

Alternatively, from a production point of view, we can breakdown the options into "cinematic scenes required from a workload perspective."  With DA2, there were 8 (one male, one female, for each romanceable character).  If we go with 2/2/2, there are again 8 (this is if we ignore player races, which actually shoots this number up to 32!).

 

Granted this is somewhat of a simplification, because creating a whole new scene rather than repurposing an existing one does create more time.  But the 80-20 rule is something that comes into play (80% of the effort required for 20% of the result) I find.  In that it's the fine details that take the most effort, and those fine details often incorporate "making the scene work with different player models."

 

This is something I actually just learned on the project myself!  But we'd have to alter how we do the romance content if we wanted to make it more universally available.  This might be preferable for some, but I think there'd be plenty of people disappointed with this as well.

[Allan Schumacher]

It'd probably work better with DAO (though there'd still be some issues). But I remember someone saying "For a game about characters, it's a bit silly for us to only really have one base character model/skeleton." I'm inclined to agree

[Allan Schumacher]

If you see her conversations with Zevran, the fact you need to make an approach first as a man (if you are a woman she INMEDIATLY compliments your hair at +20 or so), how she talked about the Sisters in the chantry, how she felt about Marjolaine and that she keeps watching Morrigan in a way Morrigan practically screams to her "MY EYES ARE HERE! CREEP!" you could see Lelianna's interest is just women and warden.

 

 

That doesn't mean she can't be bisexual.  I have a friend that prefers women, but if things click with a man she's perfectly fine with that.  Anecdotal, but I think you're imposing your assumptions for how a character should be based on your expectations, when that's not fair because it's entirely possible that your expectations are coloured by a non-universal experience and isn't actually reflective of all situations.

 

A character like Anders doesn't bother me, by being bisexual.  It doesn't seem like character assassination to me.

 

Our games also aren't made in a cultural vacuum.  BioWare is still growing as a studio in getting more comfortable expressing some of this in a world that is still learning to be more understanding and accepting to this sort of content as well.

[Allan Schumacher]

i have no issues with someone living their life how they choose to do so....I also have no problem with all groups and walks of life being represented.  I am glad that these games represent everyone and I have no issue with that. I accept everyone for who they are or want to be...who am I to judge.

 

When it stops being about just merely representing people to then being shoved down my throat and pushing for more and more and more I do have a problem with that. 

 

What exactly is the line by which something is shoved down your throat?  Do you think this is a concern for DAI?

 

 

i think I was very understanding and respectful in my first post in the thread (which was made today)

 

I very plainly said I take no issues with how people want to live their life.  I don't see why I put walls/defenses up with people.  In my mind I never attacked anyone.  Just shared my opinion on a line of thought that a developer of the games was on.

 

At this point, if it's not an issue with our games, I am going to have to join in on why you bothered to ask it?

 

Because, unfortunately, you opted to use the exact same language that people that hate the content's very existence also use.