546 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

First the character you create can be anything you want so why do you assume the PC will be straight?
Why do you care if there are more straight characters than gay characters?
Do you not like to interact with different people who have their own sexuality? Must they all be only what you like?

 

Full stop.

 

Emphasis mine.  I think this is a question you need to ask yourself, as opposed to them.  If you cannot think of a reason, then keep giving it some thought.  It's been discussed a lot in both of the threads about this.

 

Basically the issue is that, yet again, "the type of content I prefer is not considered as valuable as what the 'normal' people like, and I've been marginalized again."

 

A lot of people like DA2 because, simply, this feeling is NOT conveyed.  That we aren't doing it for DAI means "They aren't doing it in a way I felt comfortable with... this means that it might not be as good" and people get concerned.  This is a human reaction.

 

 

As for the last line, it's a straw man and no one suggests that the characters must "all be only what you like?"  Questions like this are easily turned around on yourself, because you clearly like it this way so why must it be the way that you like?

 

 

 

Mr. Gaider is not the first to say this so why do suddenly all your concerns alleviate?
Why were they not alleviated before when other people said similar things?

 

Because David (and myself) have infinitely more context by which to inform our answers.  When you say something, (especially when it includes statemens like your question above), it's presumptive and comes across as "Well it's the way I like it now... you should just deal with it.  Why does it have to be your way?"  Because, again, why does it have to be any way?

[Nocte ad Mortem]

I think we have come to a point where romance in games is just not feasible anymore, because no matter what you do somebody is going to feel discriminated and get pissed. As much as I like (heterosexual) romance in BioWare's games, I'd recommend that BioWare removes explicit romance from their new IP and instead replaces it with deep friendships, where romance and love and sex are only very slightly implied and left open for interpretation by the player. I think this is the only way to actually please everyone.

It wouldn't make everyone happy, it would just ****** off everyone that likes romances, which is probably a bigger number than they'd ****** off with whatever system they were going to use to begin with. 

[twincast]

Anders was bisexual.  Gaider has confirmed that Anders was bisexual back in DA: A when he wrote him.

 

What's wrong with Anders? Looks like we saw him differently.

 

It's not about what they are on some internal wiki or whatever but how they come across to the player (character) without meta knowledge.

[TurretSyndrome]

Enough with the damned realism argument, it is not about realism, it is about character agency. You want the characters to bend over and let you do whatever you want with them, sorry but you can't. DA 2 took away so much character agency with playersexuality and that stupid "pre-ending abandon-proof" F/R system. The characters were chained to the PC through game mechanics and game mechanics only and basically let the player write their sexual preference. And don't give me that "Oh no, it's left ambiguous" crap, no it's not. The moment you start a new game, play with a different gender and romance them, they are made out to be bisexual. And since Gaider denies that, they are playersexual.

 

Seriously, why do you think certain race/class/gender/background combinations have different effects, because they make up a certain character,  and are just as important as the personality of that character. If you play as the qunari character, you are bound to be treated differently, you will be locked out of content that other races have access to because of your race. If people understand that, why is it so hard to understand that it is the same with companions. Not all companions are not going to like what you do, in the same way not all companions will want to romance you. The reason can be your race, class and yes, even your gender. Just because they revealed that there will be set sexualities, why do people immediately assume that that is the only restriction here?

 

Bioware decided to take this route, and from the backlash, I know that they are going to be extra careful while designing romances. Stop bringing Mass Effect into this, this is not Mass Effect and Origins was the only one with 2 straight romances and that was a long time ago. From what I see here, all this frustration is because people are immediately assuming that they or their group will get the short end of the stick. I honestly don't think that's going to happen. Bioware wouldn't make such a ballsy move like this without thinking things through. 

[daveliam]

It's not about what they are on some internal wiki or whatever but how they come across to the player (character) without meta knowledge.

 

Right, so you saw a flirty guy who makes off-hand comments about a girl as straight and others saw him as either straight or bisexual.  Turns out he was bisexual.

 

Not everyone assumes that expression of interest in one gender (without saying that they don't have interest in the other) means that a person is straight.  That's all.  I think that it's common to make this assumption, but it doesn't mean that it's always accurate.

 

Enough with the damned realism argument, it is not about realism, it is about character agency. You want the characters to bend over and let you do whatever you want with them, sorry but you can't. DA 2 took away so much character agency with playersexuality and that stupid "pre-ending abandon-proof" F/R system. The characters were chained to the PC through game mechanics and game mechanics only and basically let the player write their sexual preference. And don't give me that "Oh no, it's left ambiguous" crap, no it's not. The moment you start a new game, play with a different gender and romance them, they are made out to be bisexual. And since Gaider denies that, they are playersexual.

 

No one is stating that they want the characters to "let us do whatever we want with them."  Exaggeration does little to strengthen your argument.

 

Also, where does Gaider deny that the characters are bisexual in DA 2?  In fact, on his blog, he's hinted at the very opposite.  They are made out to be bisexual in the game and not playersexual, which would require them to actually change their sexuality based on the player's gender.

 

Bioware decided to take this route, and from the backlash, I know that they are going to be extra careful while designing romances. Stop bringing Mass Effect into this, this is not Mass Effect and Origins was the only one with 2 straight romances and that was a long time ago. From what I see here, all this frustration is because people are immediately assuming that they or their group will get the short end of the stick. I honestly don't think that's going to happen. Bioware wouldn't make such a ballsy move like this without thinking things through. 

 

I tend to agree that Bioware will probably not short-end any one group, however, they have done so in every single game that took the "variety of sexualities" approach.  Yes, you can look at Bioware as a developer to get a gauge of possibilities based on past games, which means that the Balder's Gate, KOTOR, SWTOR, and Mass Effect games are relevant.  While I'm aware that the DA team is a different one, but even they haven't done it equitably in the past.  I totally understand concerns because gay and lesbian players have been given less content in the past.  It's hard to take with faith that after a single game with equitable content, when the developer announces that they are going back to the earlier approach (the one where you got less content), that you will still be getting the same amount of content.  The dev comments on the forums are a good way to help alleviate this concern, but until they announce how it will work and who is available to whom, it is reasonable for people to be concerned.

[Ianamus]

I think that the realism arguments make a lot more sense if you substitute the word "realistic" with "believable". 

 

I know that I, personally, find a set of LI's with varying sexual preferences a lot more believable than having every single one be either bisexual or ambiguous enough to be considered bisexual. 

 

It was clear in the original interview that "realistic" was not quite the word he was going for, so revolving arguments around the specifics of that exact word makes little sense. 

[syllogi]

But what if for some people having short haired butch woman be a lesbian already is a 'walking, offensive stereotype'? There's then no amount of complexity or realism you can add to the character that will appease these who would get upset at the appearance.

 

Who are the people who consider the existence of butch lesbians to be offensive?  Not lesbians, generally, because gender non-conformity, to some degree, is pretty common amongst lesbians, and gender non-conformity is not an offensive or negative thing by itself.  

 

"Butch" lesbians deserve representation in media just as much as any group, and it's being discussed more and more lately, because while femme lesbians are represented pretty well, the lack of non-feminine lesbian representation is pretty obvious: Why Are There No Butch Lesbians on Television?

 

I mean, yeah, someone might have gotten upset if a character like Aveline had been a lesbian, but I assure you, she would have had lesbian fans, and if Bioware is actually including more diverse representation of LGBT characters *for* LGBT players, shouldn't those people, the ones who take inspiration from characters who look and act like real people they know and identify with, be the ones Bioware worries about?

[Allan Schumacher]

It can also mean getting more love interests to choose from than other demographics. 

 

It might mean that.  Based on history, it's unlikely that those that feel they typically do not get it will feel this way however.

 

Even still, someone may still NOT be okay that they get more content that they would prefer because they recognize that other people may not be as happy.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Isabela's pretty much the sole exception and Anders the worst offender to me.

"Oh, I love you karl, I'll always remember yo- Wait, the main characters a girl? Well then I'll always remember k..ummm..kkkk...ummm, I'm sure it started with a K...Ah well, doesn't matter. He meant nothing to me anyway. Yup...absolutely nothing...so when can I get your number, miss?

[Nocte ad Mortem]

I posted in the last thread about the stereotype issue, and I'll say again, I trust Bioware to know the difference between a walking stereotype and a gender non-conforming character. I just hope that the audience as a whole will be able to see the difference if it comes to that, because I'm a little more concerned there. 

[PSUHammer]

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about.  Realism in the game world =/= realism in our world, but some people will never fail to use that argument.

 

That is according to you.  Most game/film/book worlds, even if fantasy, utilize some common forms of understood realism to help us connect with the story.  There are humans in Dragon Age, right?  Is that realism?  There are many typical REAL medieval technologies, dress, weapons and architecture in Dragon Age.  I know, REAL, right?  The character interactions, and ideas about politics, government, society are drawn from various REAL cultures throughout history.

 

I am not buying the dismissive "it's a fantasy world so realism is unimportant because it makes my argument more convenient" vibe.

[Allan Schumacher]

When people say realism they usually refer to realism in the context of an specific game universe, not the real world.

 

We are not talking about EuroTruck simulator, we are talking about DA and Thedas in particular where dragons, magic and mostly heterosexual relationships are completely realistic.

 

If this is the case then I find the usage of the word "realism" is increasingly not relevant, because we have no basis for the distribution of sexual orientations.

 

Further, that something is unlikely does not mean it's not realistic.  If people have issues about it being improbable, then I'll remind people that for DA2, if we had for example gone with 1 heterosexual character, 2 bisexual characters, and 1 homosexual character, that there is a mere 1 in 5 chance of that happening if we assume an even distribution of sexual orientations throughout the population.  Since the sexual orientations of the characters are fixed in the game, any specific version we give you of them is not likely.

 

As an analogy, it's improbable that my genetic make up is the way that it is (try replicating it in experiments!).  But it still happened.

[PSUHammer]

2/2/2 (heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual companions) really isn't that realistic though, seeing that the prevalence of heterosexuality in our society is about 90% and not 33%. So 4/1/1 or something would be closer with 66% heterosexual companions. 30/2/2 would be even more realistic with ~90% heterosexual companions (30/2/2 is obviously something we will never see, you'd have to clone Mr. Gaider and the rest of the writing team 10 times over to pull that off ). But it doesn't really matter anyway; whatever BioWare does, some people are just going to get rubbed in the wrong way, no matter which sexual orientation they might have.

 

I think we have come to a point where romance in games is just not feasible anymore, because no matter what you do somebody is going to feel discriminated and get pissed. As much as I like (heterosexual) romance in BioWare's games, I'd recommend that BioWare removes explicit romance from their new IP and instead replaces it with deep friendships, where romance and love and sex are only very slightly implied and left open for interpretation by the player. I think this is the only way to actually please everyone.

 

Agree with you to a certain extent....but also think that companies can get themselves in trouble by trying to please EVERYONE.  That is absolutely impossible.  They should continue telling the stories they want to tell and feel comfortable that they are doing a great job casting a pretty wide net.  Maybe 5% are not pleased...but it is better than 40%-50% not pleased.

[dlux]

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about.  Realism in the game world =/= realism in our world, but some people will never fail to use that argument.

Seems strange to me to have a fantasy world, which is based on our own during medieval times, where heterosexuals are the minority. I can also not see any reason why homosexuality was so beneficial that it therefore became predominant in the Dragon Age world. If there is a reason for this, then it was not explicitely stated.
 
Anyway, as far as I can tell homosexuality is not the dominating sexual preference in the Dragon Age universe either.
 

It wouldn't make everyone happy, it would just ****** off everyone that likes romances, which is probably a bigger number than they'd ****** off with whatever system they were going to use to begin with.

I wrote that romance could only be implied and left open for the player to interpret himself.
 
I also emphasized that they should do this in the new intellectual property (IP) that BioWare is currently developing. You can't be mad about a detail that has been substantially changed from other games, if the the new game is based upon a completely new IP anyway.

[Allan Schumacher]

What's an example of this?

 

It means that we can have a love interest be clearly gay, for example, and have interactions with that character about that, even if that love interest is not being actively pursued during a given playthrough.

[oceanicsurvivor]

That is according to you.  Most game/film/book worlds, even if fantasy, utilize some common forms of understood realism to help us connect with the story.  There are humans in Dragon Age, right?  Is that realism?  There are many typical REAL medieval technologies, dress, weapons and architecture in Dragon Age.  I know, REAL, right?  The character interactions, and ideas about politics, government, society are drawn from various REAL cultures throughout history.

 

I am not buying the dismissive "it's a fantasy world so realism is unimportant because it makes my argument more convenient" vibe.

And all the characters presumably breathe oxygen. So?

 

Sure there are elements drawn from the real world, art is impacted and shaped by reality, but just b/c you can see those parallels doesn't mean that everything has to be a certain way b/c it is that way in our world. Therefore, the realism argument doesn't inherently matter or have any relevance in the romance discussion.

[TurretSyndrome]

No one is stating that they want the characters to "let us do whatever we want with them."  Exaggeration does little to strengthen your argument.

 

Also, where does Gaider deny that the characters are bisexual in DA 2?  In fact, on his blog, he's hinted at the very opposite.  They are made out to be bisexual in the game and not playersexual, which would require them to actually change their sexuality based on the player's gender.

 

 

I tend to agree that Bioware will probably not short-end any one group, however, they have done so in every single game that took the "variety of sexualities" approach.  Yes, you can look at Bioware as a developer to get a gauge of possibilities based on past games, which means that the Balder's Gate, KOTOR, SWTOR, and Mass Effect games are relevant.  While I'm aware that the DA team is a different one, but even they haven't done it equitably in the past.  I totally understand concerns because gay and lesbian players have been given less content in the past.  It's hard to take with faith that after a single game with equitable content, when the developer announces that they are going back to the earlier approach (the one where you got less content), that you will still be getting the same amount of content.  The dev comments on the forums are a good way to help alleviate this concern, but until they announce how it will work and who is available to whom, it is reasonable for people to be concerned.

 

The paragraph was really written in irritation about how people constantly keep asking for characters to be welcoming in every way no matter what they do. I know it's not what playersexuality really does, but I was really just speaking in general. Bisexual means bisexual. Nothing changes about a bisexual character regardless of who they romance. You say Gaider hints at all characters in DA 2 being bisexual, but did he ever say that? I don't remember where he said that not all companions are bisexual, maybe I'm remembering it wrong.

 

I know Bioware's past isn't much to go on but as I said, it's a ballsy move, and they know they can trip over pretty badly if they don't get it right. I've said this before in another thread but honestly, I wish they'd go with alternating between number of available romances for gay/lesbian and straight groups. They did 2 straight and 2 bi in DA:O, and they could do 2 gay/lesbian and 2 bi characters this time around. That is possibly the best compromise I see here because no matter what, people are not going to stop whining over which one's got the better deal regardless of whether or not the numbers are equal.

[wright1978]

I think that the realism arguments make a lot more sense if you substitute the word "realistic" with "believable". 

 

I know that I, personally, find a set of LI's with varying sexual preferences a lot more believable than having every single one be either bisexual or ambiguous enough to be considered bisexual. 

 

It was clear in the original interview that "realistic" was not quite the word he was going for, so revolving arguments around the specifics of that exact word makes little sense. 

I would disagree that it is particularly more believable than ambiguity. Certainly if you are looking to restrict based on believability you should do so on multiple other facets to by that reasoning rather than arbitrarily picking on orientation. If the cost of this restriction is the player losing all choice within companion romances or loss of depth then i'll view it as far too high a one to pay for very little gain.

[PSUHammer]

And all the characters presumably breathe oxygen. So?

 

Sure there are elements drawn from the real world, art is impacted and shaped by reality, but just b/c you can see those parallels doesn't mean that everything has to be a certain way b/c it is that way in our world. Therefore, the realism argument doesn't inherently matter or have any relevance in the romance discussion.

 

It does for me.  Familiar character interactions and reactions are part of what draws me to Bioware games.  

[Chashan]

"Oh, I love you karl, I'll always remember yo- Wait, the main characters a girl? Well then I'll always remember k..ummm..kkkk...ummm, I'm sure it started with a K...Ah well, doesn't matter. He meant nothing to me anyway. Yup...absolutely nothing...so when can I get your number, miss?

 

Not quite as dramatic as this, but yes, it is not made clear he was this intimate with him in case of a Ms Hawke.

 

 

PSUHammer wrote...

That is according to you.  Most game/film/book worlds, even if fantasy, utilize some common forms of understood realism to help us connect with the story.  There are humans in Dragon Age, right?  Is that realism?  There are many typical REAL medieval technologies, dress, weapons and architecture in Dragon Age.  I know, REAL, right?  The character interactions, and ideas about politics, government, society are drawn from various REAL cultures throughout history.

 

I am not buying the dismissive "it's a fantasy world so realism is unimportant because it makes my argument more convenient" vibe.

 

 

Quite correct. To a certain degree, the DA-setting is "authentic" in terms of technological and social setting. So maybe, rather than speak of "realism" one could add "authenticity" as a criterion...?

 

 

Personally, I did not much mind the all-comers approach of DA2. Would require fine-tuning, such as significant facts of the character not falling by the way-side - as regards the depth of Anders's relationship with Karl; replaying DA:A, it's not difficult at all to picture him in the bi-camp.

BW chose the set approach for DA:I instead. We'll see how it turns out.

[XxPrincess(x)ThreatxX]

Am disappointed inquisition isn't going the all bi route like DA2 did but am hopeful BW will make it fair for everyone. Id rather it not be like origins where just the straight characters were important or the ME series which screwed both LGBT & straight female players while straight males always had options.

[daveliam]

That is according to you.  Most game/film/book worlds, even if fantasy, utilize some common forms of understood realism to help us connect with the story.  There are humans in Dragon Age, right?  Is that realism?  There are many typical REAL medieval technologies, dress, weapons and architecture in Dragon Age.  I know, REAL, right?  The character interactions, and ideas about politics, government, society are drawn from various REAL cultures throughout history.

 

I am not buying the dismissive "it's a fantasy world so realism is unimportant because it makes my argument more convenient" vibe.

 

But why does this aspect have to be "realistic" for you to enjoy the game?   You have no problem with dwarves and elves and a brand new 'qunari' race, but the idea that the proportion of sexualities being more equally distributed is an issue?  I just can't ever follow this kind of reasoning.

 

If this is the case then I find the usage of the word "realism" is increasingly not relevant, because we have no basis for the distribution of sexual orientations.

 

Further, that something is unlikely does not mean it's not realistic.  If people have issues about it being improbable, then I'll remind people that for DA2, if we had for example gone with 1 heterosexual character, 2 bisexual characters, and 1 homosexual character, that there is a mere 1 in 5 chance of that happening if we assume an even distribution of sexual orientations throughout the population.  Since the sexual orientations of the characters are fixed in the game, any specific version we give you of them is not likely.

 

As an analogy, it's improbable that my genetic make up is the way that it is (try replicating it in experiments!).  But it still happened.

 

^^ 100% this.  If I had a million likes, I would give them all to this post.

 

Agree with you to a certain extent....but also think that companies can get themselves in trouble by trying to please EVERYONE.  That is absolutely impossible.  They should continue telling the stories they want to tell and feel comfortable that they are doing a great job casting a pretty wide net.  Maybe 5% are not pleased...but it is better than 40%-50% not pleased.

 

It's usually the people in the 95% who are okay with the 5% not being "pleased".  Things don't ever change for the 5% unless people speak up.

 

Seems strange to me to have a fantasy world, which is based on our own during medieval times, where heterosexuals are the minority. I can also not see any reason why homosexuality was so beneficial that is therefore became predominant in the Dragon Age world. If there is a reason for this, then it was not explicitely stated.
 
Anyway, as far as I can tell homosexuality is not the dominating sexual preferance in the Dragon Age universe either.
 

I wrote that romance could only be implied and left open for the player to interpret himself.
 
I also emphasized that they should do this in the new intellectual property (IP) that BioWare is currently developing. You can't be mad about something that has been substanitally changed if it is something completely new anyway.

 

I haven't bee talking about "homosexuality", though.  I'm talking about bisexuality.  Those are different things.  We have strong evidence that bisexuality is more common in Thedas than on Earth.  That's my entire point.  People say, "Oh, I want it to be more realistic", but the fact is that, in the game, we have had 9 LI's and 6 of them were bisexual.  That IS evidence that bisexuality is more common.

[jillabender]

Enough with the damned realism argument, it is not about realism, it is about character agency. You want the characters to bend over and let you do whatever you want with them, sorry but you can't. DA 2 took away so much character agency with playersexuality and that stupid "pre-ending abandon-proof" F/R system. The characters were chained to the PC through game mechanics and game mechanics only and basically let the player write their sexual preference. And don't give me that "Oh no, it's left ambiguous" crap, no it's not. The moment you start a new game, play with a different gender and romance them, they are made out to be bisexual. And since Gaider denies that, they are playersexual.

 

[...]

 

Respectfully, I think the argument that DA2's model took away agency from the characters is confused.

 

It's the nature of game mechanics that optional romance content is always going to come down to the player making a choice to pursue the romance, and a romance flag being set as a result of that choice. There could perhaps be situations where there could be further conditions on the circumstances needed to activate a romance, as well as choices that might end the romance without that outcome being immediately obvious – but by definition, any agency on the part of non-player characters is always going to be an illusion.

 

I agree with the idea that there is perhaps more that could be done to better maintain the illusion that the NPCs are people with agency, and that ideally, the romances should feel more as though the NPCs are responding to the specific personality that the player has helped to define for their PC. But I can't agree that the lack of set sexualities was the cause of any shortcomings DA2 had in that regard, and I think the challenge of making the romances feel more personal requires more than simply restrictions based on choices made in character creation.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Because freedom doesn't always equate to a positive.

 

Actually I'll take that back in this context since playersexuality has its perks, but set sexualities have other benefits, benefits that many of us(but not all) would prefer over the former.

What perks?  Aside from a trivial reduction in recorded Inquisitor lines, I don't see any.

 

B.) Sexual orientation and other aspects of sexuality inform one's personality, so they can write stuff they otherwise couldn't.

I don't agree with this.  There is no necessary connection between one's sexuality and one's personality.  This could only possibly be of concern if there was some incongruity that might arise from a combination of personality and sexuality, and that simply isn't the case.

 

Any person can have any sexuality.  Some combinations make the character more complex or less obvious, but they can still occur.  A gay Fenris is difference from a bisexual Fenris, yes, but it's possible that all of the characteristics we actually see don't change when his sexuality changes.