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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).
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.
The debates about whether or not the romances in Dragon Age 2 represented bisexuality (in the two cases where explicit interest in both genders was declared and acted upon by the characters regardless of Hawke) have been on-and-off for years. That such a debate could even exist, and terms like playersexual or Hawkesexual or even Schrodinger's Sexuality needed to be coined in order to convey the completely viable other ways to interpret said romances, is evidence that DA2's approach was, in those cases, not "one set sexuality." That players could opt to interpret everyone as bisexual, or straight in some playthroughs and gay in others, and did opt to do so frequently, is further evidence of this. A player who wanted to imagine that Anders was gay would not have been contradicted by any of the content in a given playthrough of Dragon Age 2, nor would a player who wanted to imagine that Merrill was straight. That the opposite is equally true in both instances is, again, further evidence of this. The only way through which those characters could be said to be bisexual - and thus represent bisexual characters - is through meta-knowledge. For some this is enough, for others it is not.
What does this mean? It means Cameron's statement must be understood in that context. He is speaking to an audience, us, who he must assume is using DA2 as a frame of reference. How Inquisition will do romances is not something that has been announced, so deriving assumptions from that which we have no knowledge will invariably lead down whatever paths our instincts guide us. If we want to expect the worst from Inquisition, there's nothing out there yet to contradict us. If we want to get worked up, that's a great way to do it. It just doesn't happen to be an effective method of drawing accurate conclusions.
On the other hand, when put up against Dragon Age 2's approach, we can derive some definite meaning from the statement. If Dragon Age 2's position was one of inherent and intentional ambiguity to allow for a variety of interpretations, we can safely assume that what Cameron Lee meant to convey with his statement is only that there will be no ambiguity in Inquisition. As to whether or not that means everyone will be explicitly bisexual - thus retaining the same accessibility to romance content (I hesitate to use "inclusivity" here, for reasons I'll explain in the next paragraph), or some will be gay, others lesbian, others bi, others straight, and others pan or ace, is not something the statement can convey without more information. Nor does it convey the implication, as some have interpreted, that bisexuality is not a set orientation. It merely implies that characters will have the sexual orientation they have regardless of what gender your protagonist happens to be. Again, in direct contrast to Dragon Age 2.
Given that the many debates over Dragon Age 2's approach can be summarized as: The trade-offs of accessibility ("I can romance whoever I want with whoever I want") and representation (Where some characters can be interpreted as straight or gay depending on which gender you picked after pressing Start, it has been argued neither gays nor straights - nor indeed bisexuals - can be faithfully represented by that character within any given playthrough) in achieving the goal of providing as many players as possible with adequate options, Cameron's statement can be interpreted as evidence of BioWare having essentially agreed with the premise argued by those who say DA2's approach was not entirely representative, and that is therefore what I believe Cameron means by Inqusition's take being more "realistic." Realistically, my sexual preference is not determined by gender of the next person to walk into the room, it existed before that person ever opened the door. That I may be into women, or men, or both, is set.
I can understand any changes along issues such as these to be controversial, and have proponents and detractors. But a careful unpacking of the statement in the context of Dragon Age 2 at least provides a framework for discussion that is grounded in something other than bad feelings. Likewise, this is not merely a gameplay or replayability issue, for reasons that ought to be clear from the content of this post as well as many others.
Disclaimer: I did not carefully read through every post in this thread, only skimmed to get a sense of the discussion here (in addition to elsewhere) and made a general statement. If this has all been covered, feel free to move along.
Just that characters orientation will not all be bisexual (or, as many seem to feel, ambiguously defined).
But why not? This doesn't make any sense at all.
I hate this. This is a terrible collective decision on BioWare's part.
I am wholly indifferent to Cameron's messaging on this point. I don't care how the decision is presented. What this does is remove player freedom. I see no corresponding benefit which would justify that loss.
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.'
Does Alistair even express an attraction to any female if you don't bring up the whole Morrigan's beautiful in her conversation (when playing a male I mean)? Did he flirt with Leliana?
Me too actually. It would be fair, since she's most likely an NPC like Cullen.
I wouldn't like it if the main straight LI for males is a companion romance but the straight female romance isn't.
I really don't think Bioware classifies romances as "Main" or not. Some characters are more immediately relevant to the story, yes, but I found Fenris' romance just as engaging as Anders despite him being a more "out of place character".
I'm inclined to hope that Bioware intends to "balanced" with the approach they would take to a 2/2/2 system. But our idea of balance won't necessarily fit with theirs. If the writers think that NPC romances are just as valuable as companion romances then I don't see why they wouldn't make it a little unbalanced in terms of which sexualities are NPCs and which are companions.
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.
Yes, he hits on my female Warden.Does Alistair even express an attraction to any female if you don't bring up the whole Morrigan's beautiful in her conversation (when playing a male I mean)? Did he flirt with Leliana?
Yes, he hits on my female Warden.
I'm talking about a game without femwarden.
Does he hit on anyone that's not femwarden? (Outside the DLC with him getting with Leliana.)
This is how I'd prefer they do it, if they are going to use NPC romances. But, with three women and an excess of men, you'd think that it would make more sense to simply make all the women companions LIs, and add one of the men (Iron Bull seems most likely). The downside of this is that, yes, it would have taken more resources.
I think, therefore, that the most likely LIs are Scribe Girl, Cullen, Cassandra, Sera, Dramatic Hands (probably Dorian), and Solas--it's unlikely they would wrangle with a qunari's size and clipping issues, Varric has reasons to be out of the playing field already, and they generally do not make older characters into romances (though I know of several people who really want that Warden--I don't care for him but I wish they could have him...).
If Cullen is bisexual, people are going to complain about that (but he was straight in DA:O! they will say). If he is straight, people will complain about that (but he's hot, I wanted him too... they will say). Same for Scribe Girl. And then you'd get to argue over who's straight or bi among the companions...
The only two I can even theorize about would be Solas and DHMG. I think Solas is likely to be bisexual, and DHMG is likely to be gay. Solas, again, appears to be potentially very important to the plot, and in that respect it would be wrong to keep people from romancing him based on gender preference alone.
To be honest I've been thinking for a while that the lineup might be;
Cassandra - Straight
Sera - Lesbian
Scribe Girl - Bisexual
Solas - Straight
DHMG - Gay
Cullen - Bisexual
This is the way they would do it most fairly (but companions could be switched out still, of course). I wish they'd have picked 3 companion LIs, also. I think this is the lineup we'll get, though. I'm not sure if these will be the final sexualities, but it's my guess. More sure on the NPCs than the comapnions, since that's what locks up the "fairness" ratio.
We're laboring on Cassandra/Solas being "main" romances, but it's possible they also may have balanced things out more. I would have rather they avoided obvious "main" romances, anyway.
I'm talking about a game without femwarden.
Does he hit on anyone that's not femwarden? (Outside the DLC with him getting with Leliana.)
But why not? This doesn't make any sense at all.
I hate this. This is a terrible collective decision on BioWare's part.
I am wholly indifferent to Cameron's messaging on this point. I don't care how the decision is presented. What this does is remove player freedom. I see no corresponding benefit which would justify that loss.
You see an attractive woman. You ask her out. She declines, as she is a lesbian. Has your freedom to date her been removed?
He tells the male Warden Morrigan is a hottie. He hits on the female Warden. Whether you're male or female, he shows interest in women.
The former was what I was interested in. Was just checking if he made it as blatant when you were a male PC. Thanks. 
To be honest I've been thinking for a while that the lineup might be;
Cassandra - Straight
Sera - Lesbian
Scribe Girl - Bisexual
Solas - Straight
DHMG - Gay
Cullen - Bisexual
This is the way they would do it most fairly (but companions could be switched out still, of course). I wish they'd have picked 3 companion LIs, also. I think this is the lineup we'll get, though. I'm not sure if these will be the final sexualities, but it's my guess. More sure on the NPCs than the comapnions, since that's what locks up the "fairness" ratio.
We're laboring on Cassandra/Solas being "main" romances, but it's possible they also may have balanced things out more. I would have rather they avoided obvious "main" romances, anyway.
Ideally there would never have been such a thing as a "main" romance, but every previous game has had some characters who are simply more relevant to the plot than others. I hated that I romanced Anders at the time, but in retrospect the idea that he was so involved in the story, and what you could choose to do with him afterward, made an excellent and emotional story. Isabella also tied in very well with the story of DA2. The obvious mains in DA:O were Alistair and Morrigan, though I'd also argue that Leliana was and remains more important than Zevran.
Solas is a Fade expert. We're dealing with the Fade a lot... I think that will lend to his importance, so he'll likely be seen as "main" even if he isn't. Same with Cassandra's role, although she may surprise us and be less important than, say, Vivienne. The Warden looks to have an interesting, and possibly highly important, backstory as well, though I doubt he is an LI.
The debates about whether or not the romances in Dragon Age 2 represented bisexuality (in the two cases where explicit interest in both genders was declared and acted upon by the characters regardless of Hawke) have been on-and-off for years. That such a debate could even exist, and terms like playersexual or Hawkesexual or even Schrodinger's Sexuality needed to be coined in order to convey the completely viable other ways to interpret said romances, is evidence that DA2's approach was, in those cases, not "one set sexuality." That players could opt to interpret everyone as bisexual, or straight in some playthroughs and gay in others, and did opt to do so frequently, is further evidence of this. A player who wanted to imagine that Anders was gay would not have been contradicted by any of the content in a given playthrough of Dragon Age 2, nor would a player who wanted to imagine that Merrill was straight. That the opposite is equally true in both instances is, again, further evidence of this. The only way through which those characters could be said to be bisexual - and thus represent bisexual characters - is through meta-knowledge. For some this is enough, for others it is not.
What does this mean? It means Cameron's statement must be understood in that context. He is speaking to an audience, us, who he must assume is using DA2 as a frame of reference. How Inquisition will do romances is not something that has been announced, so deriving assumptions from that which we have no knowledge will invariably lead down whatever paths our instincts guide us. If we want to expect the worst from Inquisition, there's nothing out there yet to contradict us. If we want to get worked up, that's a great way to do it. It just doesn't happen to be an effective method of drawing accurate conclusions.
On the other hand, when put up against Dragon Age 2's approach, we can derive some definite meaning from the statement. If Dragon Age 2's position was one of inherent and intentional ambiguity to allow for a variety of interpretations, we can safely assume that what Cameron Lee meant to convey with his statement is only that there will be no ambiguity in Inquisition. As to whether or not that means everyone will be explicitly bisexual - thus retaining the same accessibility to romance content (I hesitate to use "inclusivity" here, for reasons I'll explain in the next paragraph), or some will be gay, others lesbian, others bi, others straight, and others pan or ace, is not something the statement can convey without more information. Nor does it convey the implication, as some have interpreted, that bisexuality is not a set orientation. It merely implies that characters will have the sexual orientation they have regardless of what gender your protagonist happens to be. Again, in direct contrast to Dragon Age 2.
Given that the many debates over Dragon Age 2's approach can be summarized as: The trade-offs of accessibility ("I can romance whoever I want with whoever I want") and representation (Where some characters can be interpreted as straight or gay depending on which gender you picked after pressing Start, it has been argued neither gays nor straights - nor indeed bisexuals - can be faithfully represented by that character within any given playthrough) in achieving the goal of providing as many players as possible with adequate options, Cameron's statement can be interpreted as evidence of BioWare having essentially agreed with the premise argued by those who say DA2's approach was not entirely representative, and that is therefore what I believe Cameron means by Inqusition's take being more "realistic." Realistically, my sexual preference is not determined by gender of the next person to walk into the room, it existed before that person ever opened the door. That I may be into women, or men, or both, is set.
I can understand any changes along issues such as these to be controversial, and have proponents and detractors. But a careful unpacking of the statement in the context of Dragon Age 2 at least provides a framework for discussion that is grounded in something other than bad feelings. Likewise, this is not merely a gameplay or replayability issue, for reasons that ought to be clear from the content of this post as well as many others.
Disclaimer: I did not carefully read through every post in this thread, only skimmed to get a sense of the discussion here (in addition to elsewhere) and made a general statement. If this has all been covered, feel free to move along.
As a matter of point, the sentiment of your statement, which, if I'm reading it right, means to imply that the interview doesn't preclude that all LI's will be bisexual, only that there will be no ambiguity regarding their sexuality, hasn't really been discussed so far in this thread.
Truthfully I think it's wishful thinking since as far as I'm aware, Bioware's official stance is that the romances in DA2 were always bisexual and didn't change. You could be right, but I wouldn't want to get my hopes up.
As a matter of point, the sentiment of your statement, which, if I'm reading it right, means to imply that the interview doesn't preclude that all LI's will be bisexual, only that there will be no ambiguity regarding their sexuality, hasn't really been discussed so far in this thread.
Truthfully I think it's wishful thinking since as far as I'm aware, Bioware's official stance is that the romances in DA2 were always bisexual and didn't change. You could be right, but I wouldn't want to get my hopes up.
Allan's statement a few posts back suggests that yes, there will be more sexualities represented than just "bisexual." So while it's a nice theory, I think Allan's comment might possibly have discredited it.
As a matter of point, the sentiment of your statement, which, if I'm reading it right, means to imply that the interview doesn't preclude that all LI's will be bisexual, only that there will be no ambiguity regarding their sexuality, hasn't really been discussed so far in this thread.
Truthfully I think it's wishful thinking since as far as I'm aware, Bioware's official stance is that the romances in DA2 were always bisexual and didn't change. You could be right, but I wouldn't want to get my hopes up.
Official stances are one thing, but they're not ignorant of what interpretations their presentation allowed for.
As far as the statement not precluding a bunch of explicitly bisexual LIs, well, it doesn't, does it? But like I said, it's really not a good idea to make any assumptions at all about things we have no knowledge of. Who would have guessed, months ago, in the angry threads discussing the announcement of a Human only protagonist, that we'd have four racial choices and 2 voice actors per gender? Nobody. Because we had no clue.
Allan's statement a few posts back suggests that yes, there will be more sexualities represented than just "bisexual." So while it's a nice theory, I think Allan's comment might possibly have discredited it.
Well if Allan said it then Allen said it, but like I added at the bottom I have not done a thorough readthrough of this thread and was just making a general statement.
Ideally there would never have been such a thing as a "main" romance, but every previous game has had some characters who are simply more relevant to the plot than others. I hated that I romanced Anders at the time, but in retrospect the idea that he was so involved in the story, and what you could choose to do with him afterward, made an excellent and emotional story. Isabella also tied in very well with the story of DA2. The obvious mains in DA:O were Alistair and Morrigan, though I'd also argue that Leliana was and remains more important than Zevran.
Solas is a Fade expert. We're dealing with the Fade a lot... I think that will lend to his importance, so he'll likely be seen as "main" even if he isn't. Same with Cassandra's role, although she may surprise us and be less important than, say, Vivienne. The Warden looks to have an interesting, and possibly highly important, backstory as well, though I doubt he is an LI.
They've also only had 4 LIs and no NPCs before. They're making a lot of changes, it's possible they could have also changed this.
I don't think we know enough about the plot of DA:I or the full suite of companion characters to know who the "mains" are. For all we know, the new Anders could be just a friend.
But the truth is that NPC romances stilt the process. You can't have a fair amount of companion LIs and have two "mains" be bisexual with NPC romances in the mix. It has to be one or the other now.
Official stances are one thing, but they're not ignorant of what interpretations their presentation allowed for.
As far as the statement not precluding a bunch of explicitly bisexual LIs, well, it doesn't, does it? But like I said, it's really not a good idea to make any assumptions at all about things we have no knowledge of. Who would have guessed, months ago, in the angry threads discussing the announcement of a Human only protagonist, that we'd have four racial choices and 2 voice actors per gender? Nobody. Because we had no clue.
Well if Allan said it then Allen said it, but like I added at the bottom I have not done a thorough readthrough of this thread and was just making a general statement.
I say might have, because I'm not sure and I am not going to scroll back possibly pages to look it up... it's late and I should be asleep for like... the past four hours or so...
Allan's statement a few posts back suggests that yes, there will be more sexualities represented than just "bisexual." So while it's a nice theory, I think Allan's comment might possibly have discredited it.
With all due respect to Allan, I don't take anything he says on the matter that much more seriously than I would any other fan; he works for Bioware, true, but this isn't his department, and even if it were, I have to imagine he's under some sort of ban on what he can and can't tell us in regards factual information.
The way I've interpreted all his posts on the matter is simply his own interpretations of his colleague's interview, and trying to make sense of our own ramblings and rantings on the matter.
That said, I do agree that everything we've seen suggests a variety of orientations.
Guest_Fandango_*
Surprised and pleased by the news and am excited to see how things play out in Inquisition.
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.
Remember why the Twitter thread got unstickied?
People attributing comments to the developers that they never said.
I have read all of Allan's posts and not one can be read as confirming or denying whether the love interests in DA:I are bisexual or not.
Exactly so.
We still only know two facts:
1. Cullen and Cassandra are romanceable.
2. There will be set sexualities (Or, in case someone thinks I'm precluding bisexuality from this statement, there will be no ambiguous sexualities)
Well, when I voted for gender-restrictions in another thread due to those reasons, I was treated like some kind of weirdo, who discriminates against bi-sexual people, so I must admit this fells kinda nice 
That being said: I like it and am looking forward to it.
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