43 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't think that's accurate, at least from my perspective.

 

As somebody who sees DA2's approach as bisexuality, many of the claims in that article are downright nonsensical (what does "one sexual orientation" even mean), and Cameron's overall statement is borderline insulting (to me; I see chatter that indicates it is truly insulting to some). I don't think it's a disconnect in a single phrase; for me, he doesn't seem to say why explicit orientations are an improvement more than that the inclusivity of the past game was bad... because realism and stuff.

 

As I said in my original comment, I don't think this was the way this news should have been revealed, especially not for a team that claims to want to be welcoming to all players.

 

Please elaborate.  Feel free to go point by point, because I want to understand as best I can.

 

I'm biased by my knowledge of what's in the game.  I'll certainly concede that we'll be bumbling buffoons and epically fail in communicating that, but I'd like to better understand so that at the very least I can understand it better.  I'll make the point this time of not assuming what part of the conversation you (or anyone else) may be referring to, since it was kind of out of place for me to say that.

[Allan Schumacher]

You dared to disagree with them, or were just not 100% on board with their rage and lamentation. And unfortunately, one side in particular has made the debate so toxic by pouring their emotional baggage into the mix, that to them, you're either with them, or you hate them personally.

 

I strongly encourage you (and anyone similar) to vacate this thread if this discussion bothers you.  I think making posts like this is just going to agitate people and I think there's plenty of misunderstanding, from myself included, to go around that I'd rather it not expand into something confrontational or adversarial.

 

For instance, my post to DevSin was intended to be more collaborative than adversarial, even though it's a reasonably firm position against a colleague and the company I work for.

 

 

I assure people that concerns that my time is monopolized by a particular viewpoint, and therefore the need to present dissenting viewpoints in order to ensure I am not biased in what I learn, is overstated.

[Allan Schumacher]

Are we seriously going to debate who has a more objectively sound reason for playing pixel make believe games? 

 

Nope!

[Allan Schumacher]

I find it disingenuous that people are trying to bring up other aspects of the game to justify not agreeing with bioware's decision. You can disagree with them in their reasoning or word choice, whichever was more at fault, in using the word "realistic" to talk about this issue. But don't pretend that realism is an all or nothing approach here, and that because you have some fantastical elements in the game, everything has to be fantastical, or vice versa. It's kinda insulting to anyone who stops to think for a moment what's being said here. It's like making the argument that there's water in the game, so why can't the whole game be set underwater, and then using the existence of water as a justification of having everything be covered in water.

 

I do understand, feelings are hurt and people probably think this is a betrayal of their personal trust, or hell maybe even a statement about their beliefs or lifestyles here. People say things that aren't exactly grounded in reason and logic when they are in that sort of state, it's why flame wars happen. But let's not sit here typing and pretend that because it's a fantasy game, some aspects can't be grounded in a little more realistic manners then other aspects of the game.

 

I think part of the issue is that the word usage used is awfully similar to what genuine assholes say to them so if it "looks like a duck and sounds like a duck" starts to apply.

 

It's like when I make a thread on a forum about a WW2 game and make an innocent three letter contraction for Japanese without realizing it's a racial slur.  For myself, I'm just stumbling and bumbling along.  But for anyone that finds the term offensive, I'm "yet another guy using that term in a disrespectful way.. GOD how annoying."

 

And yeah, I come victim to that in a variety of ways.  Some of it even DA related.  "Oh, another fan that is upset about <feature X>" and saying all the words that makes it easy for me to categorize them in a way simply based on how they present it.

 

 

So yeah, some people will get tripped up on how the message comes across, and it's unfortunately because presumably Cameron doesn't realize that shares a sentiment that more genuinely hateful people may also use, and it's going to set people into a defensive mode.

 

I work for BioWare, and if strange random person with no context says to me upon learning that "Man DA2 really sucked" I'm going to be disinclined to take that feedback in a very positive way.

[Allan Schumacher]

Yes, maybe I would be thinking that if I could do math. 

 

More just the issue of someone wanting "balanced romances" would presume to be okay with 2/1/1, 1/2/1, or 1/1/2.  But the thing is, in game you only actually get one of those, and it's fixed, so the "likelihood" of anything we give you still isn't likely.

[Allan Schumacher]

I apologize allan, but that post was made some time ago. The topics already come about, gotten heated, and cooled down at this point to nominal levels.

 

I appreciate the heads up however, so thank you.

 

Fair enough and I appreciate the return to equilibrium.

[Allan Schumacher]

So does that mean no Bi characters at all? What does this mean for same sex relations? Does it mean there will be no same sex relations or does it mean that there will be romance options exclusive to those of the same sex? Have the writers changed their stance on exclusively same sex relationships?

 

It does not mean no bisexual characters.  Just that characters orientation will not all be bisexual (or, as many seem to feel, ambiguously defined).

[Allan Schumacher]

It is far too late at night for me to understand that post.  I can't even tell if you were agreeing or disagreeing with me.

 

My problem does not lie with statistics.  I don't have an issue with bisexual or gay romances.  I merely agree with Cameron Lee's statements because making all available romance options bisexual ala Dragon Age 2 seems unrealistic and unlikely.  Although that is not to say that being bisexual is unrealistic in any way, shape, or form.  2/2/2 is fine with me, but I'd also be fine with an increase in any group.  It's an equal representation of the three most common sexual orientations and it still ends up being three options per gender (unless my math is wrong).

 

The point of my post is that anything we give you is unlikely.  Some may be more unlikely, but if we assume an even distribution (which may or may not be fair, but we have nothing else to go on) of sexuality, we'll get some version of 2/1/1, and since we can only have ONE, whatever it is we gave you would only have roughly a 1/5 chance on happening.

 

So no, I don't really care for the "likelihood" arguments because I think there's a lot of things that are unlikely, and even if it is unlikely that just means... it's unlikely.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think it's all in the way it was phrased. The way he said it seemed to imply that having many bisexual romance-able companions was a bad thing rather than what he meant: (I think) that having a larger variety of sexuality in romance-able companions is a good thing.

 

 

 
I believe you inquired about this previously and didn't get a reply. Sorry about that. 
 
When he says that some characters in DA:I will 'just being one sexual orientation,' the implication is that some of the previous character's *didn't* have one sexual orientation. After all, if he viewed all the previous love interests as having a defined (if not explicitly stated) orientation, it would be an odd thing to note that as happening in DA:I.

And most likely what he's referring to are bisexual characters. I mean, I don't think he's implying that Morrigan or Alistar didn't have 'one sexual orientation.'

 

I've been hit with a few PMs as well, and I think I understand.  It's definitely not the way I read it (I consider bisexuality to be a "set sexuality."), due to prior biases and general inexperience with the topic, so thank you for the clarification.

 

It seems like it'd also be increasingly jarring to those that feel that DA2 was simply 4 bisexual companions, because it'd certainly come across as "There were no set sexualities in DA2" or "The bisexual companions of DA2 do not display a set sexuality."

 

I do want to echo Shorts' statements, that discussion about the ambiguity (and whether or not it's a preferred thing) was actually one of the larger topics at the BioWare base during PAX Prime, so the idea that there are people out there that consider the sexualities "ambiguous" or "open to interpretation" are certainly out there and certainly not a small/trivial component.

 

 

I have to imagine he's under some sort of ban on what he can and can't tell us in regards factual information.

 

Just to be clear, since I see this come up a lot in a variety of places.  I'm not under any sort of ban in terms of what I can and cannot say here... I am simply trusted to not overstep my bounds.  Which means I tend to not speak definitively on very much until "higher ups" tend to speak on things.  I don't know everything, but I know a lot about a lot of stuff that I go "That hasn't been discussed yet, so I won't bring it up."

 

As stated, the reason why I engaged in this thread is because Cameron is quoted as talking about it (and I wanted to mitigate the outright trolling and derailment posts) so I have less reticence to chime in about it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Posts calling out that someone is upset over a "minor" part of the game are being removed.  Evidently if someone feels strongly about it, they don't feel it's as minor as you do, so just leave it at that.

[Allan Schumacher]

Yeah, I'll still play it, and probably enjoy it, but right now I'm feeling completely deflated. I just had my heart set on certain things.

 

Though I guess the fact that I will still be playing it is the real issue. That's why devs can keep making choices like this; because people will buy the game anyway. It's like SW:TOR. That didn't have gay romances, and that was a huge issue for a lot of people, but BioWare had no incentive to add them to the game because all those people who wanted them bought the game anyway without them.

 

So I can understand your perspective and the reason for the SWTOR analogy, are you feeling deflated because you feel this will negatively affect some sort of representation in the game?

[Allan Schumacher]

This forum can collectively be quite obtuse.

A new trailer comes out along with gobs of information in associated interviews and THIS is the topic du jour?

I just don't get the sexual hangups around here.

 

 

I'm not surprised, this is BSN after all.

 

I'm not particularly keen on passive aggressive comments about a particular group of people because what they like in our video games, and with how much passion, isn't in perfect alignment with everyone elses.

 

And I say that as someone that doesn't even care for romances in his RPGs.

 

Abstain from the thread if it is bothering you.  Do not talk **** about other forumites.

[Allan Schumacher]

I apologise if I hurt anyone's feelings. My comment was meant as a joke, seeing as how our unofficial motto is "If we can't romance it, kill it".

 

Fair enough and apologies if I seem snarky.  I've been in this thread a long time and a lot of it was suboptimal in its pleasantness.  A case of "using the words that people that are more hateful often use" and the difficulties it comes in disassociating said words.

[Allan Schumacher]

In part, because I really don't think BioWare's given good representation in past games. It wasn't until ME3 that we saw a set gay character, and even then it was only one, and lesbian options in BioWare games have always been with a bi-sexual companion (I'm not counting DA2 here, since that was player sexual), which has always felt to me less about representation and more about male fantasy (guys playing a guy character can hook up with them, but also lesbians are hot so we'll allow that as well).

 

Fair enough.

 

 

It's also always felt like there's less choices with set sexuality with companions. Or not even felt; there is less choice. Want to play a lesbian Shepard but don't like Liara? Tough luck. Want a gay Warden but don't like Zevran? Well he's all you're getting.

 

This sentiment has been shared by several others too, and it's fair especially since DAO and ME series were hardly home runs for this type of content.

 

 

So just so I'm clear, the frustration about lack of universally available romantic interests is that it's a fear that what we offer will be like the other stuff we offered in the past, which just wasn't enough choice nor satisfactory representation for you?

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm not sure if i'm reading that right. Do you mean the behavior of a gay person could be affected by social heterosexual norms/expectations, making that person act not really different from a heterosexual person? Especially if they were hiding their orientation due to fear of backlash, I suppose? If so then I agree, there can definitely be extra layer like that affecting our behaviors and muddling the waters, so to speak.

I think though even with such layers the (true) orientation can still affect person's behavior on subconscious level -- specifically, it's pretty normal to be more accommodating of people we like, and acting harsher towards these we don't like. Thus, I believe depending on person's sexual orientation they may be acting friendly towards people of one gender, than towards these of the other (especially these perceived as /really/ attractive, or rivals) And then when you interact with such person, then *depending on your own gender* you may perceive their personality differently, due to how they would treat you. I.e. if the person is, for example, acting friendlier towards women, then if you happen to be a woman you may get impression their personality is friendly(/-lier) than you would if you were a man.

 

More wider scale behaviours/personality.

 

I can concede that a person not attracted to a woman may not behave the same way towards a woman that I am attracted to.  But is that really a "personality difference?"  In the lines of, will someone's sexuality make someone innately more aggressive, more passive, argumentative, demure, seductive, and so forth.

 

 

The reason why I stress "innately" is I will wholeheartedly agree that people will tend to behave a certain way to do pervasive socialization aspects that come around as a result of someone's sexuality.

 

It can be hard to disassociate innate traits from those that are learned via socialization.  I may be idealizing things, but I think at the moment I have the idea that the personality traits a person develops, on a macro level, is relatively unaffected by their sexual orientation.  In that, sure, I'll be more tolerant to people that I like, and if I have a crush on a woman I'll probably give her more leeway than a neutral person.  But I'm not sure if I'd behave any differently if I were gay and the person I liked were a man.  At least on any innate level due to my sexuality.

[Allan Schumacher]

Pretty much. I mean, I'll fully acknowledge that this game could be different, but past experiences are stopping my expectations and hopes from getting too high.

 

Understandable.  Hopefully you're able to see stuff that helps counter this.  Thanks for taking the time to explain.

 

 

Cheers.

[Allan Schumacher]

Exactly so. And removing ambiguity will prevent years long arguments over the topic.

 

Cleaning up the forum... Ohhhhh Yeahhhh

People can then go on to more sensible arguments like: why isn't X character romanceable?

 

[Allan Schumacher]

I believe there's some base at the core of the person that determines how aggressive, passive etc they are 'on average' so to speak, when compared to others, and i'll readily agree that the 'levels' of these traits aren't linked to the person's sexual orientation, i.e. a gay man for example isn't going to be more argumentative in general than the same man if he was heterosexual instead. In my opinion sexual orientation doesn't affect these.

It's just the way I see it, "acts (relatively) friendly towards women", "acts cold(er) towards men" etc, these are also aspect of someone's personality, and that is something sexual orientation is likely to affect. So in the end depending on that orientation we may get (slightly) different "versions" of the same person, and your /impression/ of that person can wind up very different depending on your own gender, because this impression will be in no small part formed by how they acted towards you, specifically.

 

Fair enough.  I don't really see anything that I think would have me challenge it.  Cheers!

 

 

And straight women would end up with just one romance option yet again.  Because we know that's not going to happen to straight men

 

Sorry, I'm not sure how this follows from what Upsettingshorts said.

 

EDIT: Nevermind!

[Allan Schumacher]

Just because it exists doesn't mean it is prevalent
If we go by that logic, then we should scrap a lot of things from the real world "just because it is fiction". A Song of Ice and Fire is also fiction, but we can relate to the characters and the story because it borrows so much realism from European history, and in general, human experience. They have dragons too, but the setting is (largely) realistic. Realistic doesn't necessarily mean it has to be borrowed directly from the real world. To make the player's experience in a roleplaying game meaningful and relatable, you need to hit a couple of references from the real world. I feel like making everyone bisexual is just satisfying the fans who can't get over that hot, virtual stud not wanting to cuddle with their male warden, or that enigmatic witch not wanting to kiss your female elf. Also remember that the system is going to change quite a bit (apparently), so romance and friendship will develop somewhat differently than either DA:O and DA2

 

I don't think history/reality is a very good predictor of Thedas.  I dislike the premise because people often use it to mean "we shouldn't have 4 bisexuals, because that's not realistic."  When, in reality, it's actually possible to hang out with 4 people and they all happen to be bisexual.  Even if it's unlikely it doesn't mean impossible and as I tried to break down in a boring, mathy post, any permutation that we give you will not be "likely" anyways.

 

Especially given that the "reality" of the game is that you can only romance whom we allow....  Which in and of itself isn't very "realistic."

 

Much the same way that my DNA falling into alignment to create me, specifically as I am, is not very likely... it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.