2138 réponses à ce sujet

[AkiKishi]

But if all of this is just to prevent outrage from a vocal minority that doesn't know how to deal with a character flirting with them, then how is a "solution" that will cause more outrage from other groups any sort of solution at all?  If all of this is just to avoid controversy, then your answer to that does anything but.  

 

I don't believe so since it only applies to that players game and has no wider effect. On the other hand, the ninjamancing very much has a wider effect. 

 

The way I see it, Bioware have their world (World 0) and each player has their world based on that and adjusted to their liking, For instance Bioware has a canon character but in the players world that character may look nothing like theirs. 

While it's important to maintain the integrity of the world according to lore etc. since it is applied to everyone. What a player chooses to do in their world has no influence beyond it.Which is why I have no problems with toggles of any sort. 

[kalasaurus]

 

Why should we not ? We pander to players on any number of things already so they can have the game their way.

 

Like JadePrince said, players can choose to reject or not flirt with potential LI's, so they already have the game their way if they don't want romantic content.

[AkiKishi]

Like JadePrince said, players can choose to reject or not flirt with potential LI's, so they already have the game their way if they don't want romantic content.

 

Except that has been proven not to work or to be ambiguous. If it worked, we would not be discussing this.

[Char]

Except that has been proven not to work or to be ambiguous. If it worked, we would not be discussing this.

 

I wouldn't say it has been proven not to work, or that it was ambiguous, particularly in DA2 which is where the majority of these cases seem to be. I'm just going to drop in a lovely quote, and wish I could remember who said it.

 

"Nothing is foolproof to the sufficiently talented fool" 

 

There will always be people who click without thinking accidentally, or people who flirted to get friendship points without thinking about future consequences.

[kalasaurus]

Except that has been proven not to work or to be ambiguous. If it worked, we would not be discussing this.

 

How is it ambiguous?  There are heart icons in DA2.  In DA: O I guess I can see it, but you always have the option to reject/break up with a character if you were ninjamanced.

[XxPrincess(x)ThreatxX]

Is annoying really, BW responded to complaints about ninjamancing by adding the heart symbol so it would be obvious when starting a romance but people still used them & then b*tched about getting hit on afterwards

[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.

[Ryzaki]

Is annoying really, BW responded to complaints about ninjamancing by adding the heart symbol so it would be obvious when starting a romance but people still used them & then b*tched about getting hit on afterwards

 

really how hard is it not to click on the glowing freaking heart.

 

Stuff like that makes me fear for common sense.

[JadePrince]

Except that has been proven not to work or to be ambiguous. If it worked, we would not be discussing this.

 

The only time I saw it not work is when I was playing a guy and accidentally romanced women. But the people calling for toggles are not complaining about accidental straight relationships. They're talking about "accidental" m/m relationships. We've already established that the only way you can get into a m/m relationship is if you are 'stupid' or just trying to pass the blame onto someone else (your words). So then WHO is this toggle for? 

 

Just be honest and admit that the only people who want a toggle like this are the straight boys who don't even want a gay/bi male character to speak a single flirtatious line at them.

 

Everybody else seems perfectly content to either avoid the content (don't click the hearts in DA2), or break things off if they accidentally initiate a romance (in DAO).

[Ammonite]

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.

 

Imagine the hilarity though, if the toggle bugged up and the dude who doesn't want homosexuality in his game ended up with ONLY s/s LIs available  .

[Fiery Phoenix]

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.

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

[jlb524]

The way I see it, Bioware have their world (World 0) and each player has their world based on that and adjusted to their liking, For instance Bioware has a canon character but in the players world that character may look nothing like theirs. 

While it's important to maintain the integrity of the world according to lore etc. since it is applied to everyone. What a player chooses to do in their world has no influence beyond it.Which is why I have no problems with toggles of any sort. 

 

So you're saying that toggles are good so an individual can toggle off homosexual romances in order to create a 'World' closer to and maintains the integrity of the Bioware 'World 0'?

[HuldraDancer]

If I may pop my head in again for a quick bit, I'd like to say that I would really love to see purely gay characters in DAI especially NPCs in happy relationships :') even more so if they are quest important NCPs or side quest ones or something like that. Truthfully I've been using DA to try and get certain relatives to hopefully get a little more open minded (which obviously isn't working so well) and it would be nice to have gay companions or NCPs that you can't skip over. Not trying to act like its going to change the world or anything but it does expose certain people to things they hadn't thought of before and gets them thinking at least some of the time. Plus it would be great if I didn't accidentally skip over my s/s options like I did when I first played DAO.

 

As for this stuff about a toggle and ninjamancing the only characters I remember getting ninjamanced by was Alistair and I think Leliana once. Zevran if I recall correctly took great care in pratically asking you if this was okay to say or if this was okay to call you in his romance, and DA2 had the big glowy hearts that you could avoid pretty easily unless your controller had a mind of its own or something. Plus a toggle seems not only like a silly idea but a costly one as well as others have mentioned just don't flirt with the guy or gal if you do not want to be hit on by the guy or gal pretty easy, unless your talking to Alistair then don't be nice at all since he seems to take everything as 'I love you!' 

 

Anyway thats my two cents sorry to bother you all I'll disappear now

[AkiKishi]

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.

 

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.

[AkiKishi]

So you're saying that toggles are good so an individual can toggle off homosexual romances in order to create a 'World' closer to and maintains the integrity of the Bioware 'World 0'?

 

Not specfically any romances or any feature for that matter like friendly fire they can toggle anything off and the integrity of the Bioware world is completely unaffected.It really makes no difference what they choose to do in their world since it have no influence beyond it. You will never know what they are doing anyway unless you are spying on them.

 

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

[JadePrince]

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 NPC's from the LI pool based on the settings.

 

I'm guessing what he means is if you take out any lines that reference a character's sexuality, then you have to replace them with something else or risk having buggy gaps in conversations. Even if you don't do that, there's still bound to be work involved in flagging all pieces of romance dialogue that either you or any LI might say so that the toggle can... take those lines out? I guess. I'm not entirely sure how a toggle would even work from a programming standpoint. Sounds like a lot of tedious work for the sake of placating a small handful of homophobic gamers who, for some reason, can't figure out how to avoid hitting a glowing heart icon.

[jlb524]

Not specfically any romances or any feature for that matter like friendly fire they can toggle anything off and the integrity of the Bioware world is completely unaffected.It really makes no difference what they choose to do in their world since it have no influence beyond it. You will never know what they are doing anyway unless you are spying on them.

 

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

 

A gay male companion character who's interested in the PC (if male) can very much be part of BW's 'World 0' though.  Toggling this away ruins the integrity of that world.

 

You have your own version of of your response to his interest and if you turn him down, no romance occurs.

[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.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Not specfically any romances or any feature for that matter like friendly fire they can toggle anything off and the integrity of the Bioware world is completely unaffected.It really makes no difference what they choose to do in their world since it have no influence beyond it. You will never know what they are doing anyway unless you are spying on them.

 

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

One could argue that if it really makes no difference to you, then why would you want a toggle in the first place? If it doesn't matter once, it shouldn't matter period.

 

I've been seeing people suggest this 'romance toggle' feature for as long as I can remember, but it's never really made sense to me as I have yet to read a proper justification for it.

[kalasaurus]

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.

 

Are you suggesting a toggle that would remove the romanceable characters altogether?  That sounds like overkill for someone who doesn't want romantic content in their games.

[JadePrince]

A gay male companion character who's interested in the PC (if male) can very much be part of BW's 'World 0' though.  Toggling this away ruins the integrity of that world.

 

You have your own version of of your response to his interest and if you turn him down, no romance occurs.

 

Agreed. For instance, Isabela being bisexual is a canon part of her character (in EVERYbody's world) as well as being part of Bioware's 'canon'. If you gay toggle her so that she reads only as straight, then you've 'ruined the integrity' of the canon/lore that Bioware established. 

 

Edit: To clarify, you have control over your own PC in your own world state so you can control whether to romance Isabela or kick her to the curb. That's something that can vary from one person's game to another. But what you DON'T have control over (and what we're trying to say that NOBODY should have control over) is the sexual identity of the character of Isabela herself.

[Lady Nuggins]

I don't believe so since it only applies to that players game and has no wider effect. On the other hand, the ninjamancing very much has a wider effect. 

 

The way I see it, Bioware have their world (World 0) and each player has their world based on that and adjusted to their liking, For instance Bioware has a canon character but in the players world that character may look nothing like theirs. 

While it's important to maintain the integrity of the world according to lore etc. since it is applied to everyone. What a player chooses to do in their world has no influence beyond it.Which is why I have no problems with toggles of any sort. 

 

But how about the point made earlier in the thread about what that toggle would have to look like?  EVERYBODY would see a toggle that says "Are you gay, straight, or bisexual?"  That affects every player.  That affects how every person who plays the game views the handling of gay content in this game.  That WILL create controversy.

[AkiKishi]

Are you suggesting a toggle that would remove the romanceable characters altogether?  That sounds like overkill for someone who doesn't want romantic content in their games.

 

It could do that if you wanted no romantic content at all. There are various ways you could approach it. The underlying point though is no matter what you do it will not change anyones game unless they want it.

 

Romance in Bioware games has never been integrel to the plot like for instance it is in The Witcher. (relationship between Triss and Geralt)

[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.

[Lebanese Dude]

^

Slam dunk.


Also, thank you for making Dragon Age a game that welcomes all sexual orientations, including mine. Hasn't been said enough.