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[Allan Schumacher]

Starting this up again since it'll inevitably come up again, and some people have had some time to hopefully cool down a bit.

 

First off some quick "ground rules"

 

• Please do not taunt people who are disappointed because a romance option is not available to them.  No matter how much schadenfreude you may get, or how much you feel someone needs it because of whatever reason, lets not escalate things.


• Please do not snark at people that are happy because they do get a romance option that they are looking forward to.  It tends to escalate things by causing the above point to happen, and makes the moderators and developers very sad pandas.  I don't like being a sad panda!


• Report people that you feel are here to antagonize.  Try to not engage!

 

 

From there, there's been a lot of discussion about the potential for race/gender restrictions for characters, so prepare for wall o' text now!

 

Now since a few people said seeing an explanation post of mine helped, here's a link to that post, but I'll try to detail it out here again hopefully in a different way to hopefully help make things clearer.

 

 

Creating party interactions requires work in large part from writing as well as cinematics.  I'm glossing over some of the dependencies (localization, QA, etc) but I think people can wrap their heads around the writing and cutscene creation.

 

In breaking down all the writing and cinematic work requirements, certain aspects get certain amounts of budgets.  There's word budgets for the writers, and those get allocated in different ways.  Light/ambient content has less dependencies (no need to set up a magnificent stage and cutscene) so the "cost per word" there is less.  Cost in that "writers writing words here has less impact on the total amount of work for the cinematics guys."  There's also gold content, which is "we want this to hit all sorts of emotional beats, it's a big part of the core game experience and so forth."  Because of the nature of the work and how important we value it, words written here are "more expensive" because the downstream dependencies are higher.  And there are things in between.

 

I'm not quite sure precisely where romance content lies on this spectrum, but it does have aspects that make it higher.  And I'm not just talking about scenes of "sexy time" and whatnot.  It can be direct interactions as part of the "core romance" (whether it be kissing/hugging or other sorts of interaction between the PC and the LI).  There could also be scenes that occur in other places in the game where we have a bias to have your romance come up and talk as opposed to another character because we feel it's fitting.  Just trying to illustrate that it may not just be as simple as "well make it fade to black."  If your LI is distraught, for example, I think it's a better experience if your PC has the option to comfort them in a more appropriate way than just "I stand here and talk to you."

 

 

So knowing this, we can say "we think we can put about X zots towards content for the romance interests."  In part of determining how much total work we can allocate, we'll look at how efficient the writing team can be at creating words (and dealing with iteration based upon rewrites that will happen based on feedback from the team and so forth).  We'll also look at how quickly the cinematics team can be at creating scenes.  Now, while I am (unfortunately) not as equipped to deal with the challenges the writers have had (I did a bit of support work, but usually through a fellow QA that worked more closely with them directly), I was working very closely with the programming team that was building and supporting the tools for the cinematics guys.

 

Part of the challenge is that with new technology, at the start we have to make estimates on the efficiency of cinematics because they're literally not able to create the content to shippable quality early in the project.  So there's risks with these estimates (we try to be conservative), and there could be unexpected things that pop up (this affects the writers and their tools as well).  Cinematics (and to some extent writing) are a significant dependency on other things such as character races, because content that shows well for a human may not work as well for a qunari.

 

 

So when the writers come up and say "we think this person would make an interesting romance arc," we'll have to look at how that impacts the cinematics work schedule.  Lets assume we started with the realization we would need at least 4 LIs (since the team values providing choice, and we can do that with 4 characters).  But writing goes "We have some interesting ideas for romances, and we also think there's value added in representation."  Cinematics lets them know if they can handle this (like with, for example, a year long time extension)  But in the throes of writing, some other characters come along and it's "I think this person would make a really interesting romance arc actually."  Cinematics is consulted and goes "Hmmmm, this could be challenging...."  So now we can look at it and go "Okay Cinematics is at capacity, but writing can make this work.  Can we move shift around their existing work to make this work?"  Sometimes it's "yeah, we can make this work actually."  Or maybe it's "we only have the capacity to do half of the scenes."  Then we can look at the cost of the scenes specifically and see what we can do with that.  Maybe it means we take some scheduled scenes from other romances and allocate them here instead."

 

 

So I've gone on for a bit now, but this is what I am trying to point out when I say there will be less romances if we mandate that they're always bisexual so that people all have access to it.  This means that last step in the previous paragraph is now writing saying "We have a great idea for an excellent romance arc" but now cinematics says "we only have capacity to do half the scenes.  We can't do this for a bisexual romance."  Which means now that that romance arc doesn't make it into the final game because even though writing was able to write it (and all the localization and QA downstream could support it), the cinematics guys weren't able to support the content.  People that would like to romance that character now lose out.

 

 

Maaaaaaybe we can skirt around and make it minimalist, but I think that that is something that a fan goes "yeah yeah I'm okay with that" until they see it and compared to the other romances it's just not as developed.  And people will be upset about that because the content they were looking forward to isn't as good as the content other people enjoyed.

 

Hopefully that can help provide a bit better understanding, especially when I say that "making it so romance can only be bisexual likely means less romance options being available."

 

 

So it's getting late, so I have to stop.  But please feel free to continue romance discussion here, and please remain civil towards one another.

Thank you.

[Allan Schumacher]

Could you please elaborate? (it could just be that it's 3:30 AM, but I'm not sure what you're referring to)

[Allan Schumacher]

Previously i'd always thought the cost of voiced lines was an impact, so it's interesting to hear of cinematic cost.

Still i'd prefer the less but all accessible approach.

Don't like the sounds of any of the gating in the slightest but hoping i can make do and mend with one workable romance once breakdown of availabilities breaks.

 

Voiced lines is a cost.  But we have 2 male and 2 female voices, so I am not certain it's as big of a cost as other things (I don't actually know the raw numbers).

[Allan Schumacher]

Still I don't understand how the new system is more cost efficient than the DA2 one.

We get more LI , in theory , if you play the game with different characters.

If you don't replay the game , and most player don't , I'm not sure players will get more options in the end.

 

If it's about the Qunari/dwarves ...I don't know , more talking , sitting or lying in a bed and less kissing , hugging etc would have worked no?

Instead of probably limiting the romance option for the players who choose those races.

 

I wouldn't say that it's more "cost efficient."  That we have multiple player races shoots that in the foot right out the door.  I'd also say it's very likely that we are giving you more romance content than you got in DA2.
 

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm fairly sure it would be logarithmic, not exponential, and I highly doubt memory space is the limiting factor. Bioware romance scenes have tended to be packed with emotion, not data.

 

File size isn't too big of an issue, and we can get creative with memory restrictions (and do) because we can put romance content in a unique area and due to control over the scene, forcibly despawn things out of the level and stuff like that.

[Allan Schumacher]

Deleting some posts about how some historically not disadvantaged gamers are now feeling picked on.

 

As a general note, this is why and how representation helps us all.  A large part of us white guys getting sassed for being disappointed is because other, more typically not catered to groups are expressing a degree of schadenfreude because the few times I'm denied access to a type of content that other groups are much, much more often denied access to relative to me.

 

As such, if we improve representation all along, it puts people on more equal footing and when ALL people go "Awww I'm sad" then ALL people go "Awww, I feel for you, hopefully something is still there that makes you happy" instead of "Now you know how I feel!"

 

 

I don't want this topic to dominate the thread, so if anyone wants to discuss it further with me please sent me a PM.  Thanks.

[Allan Schumacher]

I can see why BioWare doesn't feel giving equal options to people who want to play dwarves or qunari or elves (or humans, for that matter) is as important as giving options to women and gay/lesbian players. And obviously there is not the same real world equality issue here.

 

But. Well.

 

I have never been able to play a human female protagonist who is remotely the same shape as me in any video game. I've never even seen one, and I don't really expect to given what video game protagonists and women in the media generally look like. While I may be a foot too tall to be a Dragon Age dwarf, part of the appeal of playing them is getting to build a hero who's short and curvy and solid just like me.

 

So when people talk about race-gating, I can't help hearing 'sorry, dwarves aren't attractive enough to go on this ride. Who'd want to romance a woman who looks like that?' And that makes me feel sad.

 

I appreciate the feedback and perspective!  Thanks.

[Allan Schumacher]

And I appreciate that people from BioWare actually read these threads, no matter how combative and/or ridiculous they get. Thank you .

 

Hhahahahaha I had to double take this.  At first I read it as "I appreciate that BioWare reads these, no matter how combative and/or ridiculous BioWare gets!" XD XD XD

 

 

At first I was pretty D:

[Allan Schumacher]

The most certainly will if the statement of issues with animating are true.

 

No, dwarf PC definitely have access to romances from other races.

[Allan Schumacher]

Wait. That wording is weird Allan. Does that mean dwarves won't have any restrictions?

 

 

All right, I think people are starting to think that the word restriction means "This character will romance exclusively this race and nothing else."  That needn't be the case. 

 

I also think some people are thinking that "This means race X can only romance other people of the same race!"  Which also doesn't have to be the case.

 

There's 4 races the player character can be.  If all the romances are available to all races with the exception of 1, then "race restrictions exist" is still true.

 

 

Of the shown characters, Varric is a dwarf.  We're not going to say "The only option for dwarf PCs is Varric" (there's no guarantee that Varric is even a romance option).  So unless we were having no romances for dwarves (we aren't), then I think there's a pretty decent chance that there will be non-dwarf NPCs that have no problem hooking up with a dwarf inquisitor, just by playing the odds.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think that this is why there is such a divide here.  Neither side is right; it's just that one way serves one group better and the other way serves the other group better.  DA: O and DA: I serves a different group in this respect and DA 2 served the other.

 

Very much so.  We have to pick our battles in terms of being fair, because the only real way to be "fair" would be to have no romances (and possibly maybe having all characters be romanceable by any player character) because it's the only way that no one person is given any sort of preferential treatment over romances.  I think it's safe to say that we aren't doing that with DAI.

 

Even in DA2, there were people that said it was unfair because they didn't like any of the romances and they should be allowed to romance Varric and so forth.  There were large fights between groups that broke out after the romance details were released to the public.

[Allan Schumacher]

I liked the DA2 way too but enough people complained about everyone being bi that we have gender & race restrictions this time but others still whine cos a pretty female companion is denied to straight male characters

 

The idea that we are doing things this way in direct response to complaints is overstated.  The primary reason that the romances in DA2 were all bisexual is because we were only writing 4 romances, and we wanted everyone to have choice.  If we're writing more than 4 romances, that restriction needn't be as strong.

[Allan Schumacher]

In defense of those people, have you seen Varric?

 

He is a Paragon of Manliness that one.

 

 

Getting into fights because of romance content is pretty much what led to the romance subforum for ME3 getting shut down though.  I don't like facilitating people getting hostile towards each other.

 

I understand your post was in jest, but I've seen people legitimize their aggression for the same (and similar) reasons.

[Allan Schumacher]

I guess that makes sense, is just what i automatically thought of when i 1st heard of gender restrictions coming back, kinda reminded me of the ME mako thing when people complained about it & then it was removed in the next game.

 

The Mako is a bit different because (at least in my opinion) it has significant, non-optional costs.  Also, internally, there are people that didn't find it a strength of ME1 either (I didn't mind the crit path Mako parts, but for the most part the content that involved the Mako wasn't interesting to me).

 

It's important to note that for any one thing there's probably a group of people complaining about it.  So if we make any changes, it's possible for someone to assume that we made those changes in response to those complaints.

[Allan Schumacher]

One of the best things about DA2 for me was that I unlike DA:O I could play a gay character and actually have a choice. Can't speak for anybody else, but one of my concerns is that certain races may take that restriction right back down to "the one available same-sex character, or be forever alone". Do we still get a choice of more than one in DA:I, regardless of gender/race/orientation? Because that's what I'm worried about.

 

Many at BioWare, including myself, recognize that choice is important.  I don't know what the breakdowns of the race restrictions are or how severe, but I can definitely say that orientation choice definitely exists.

 

 

EDIT: Since I realize this can be misunderstood, I know orientation choice exists across races.  I don't know how the race breakdown will necessarily be.  And at this point it serves as a reminder that I probably shouldn't overspeak on stuff that I don't directly work with, so I should be a bit more careful.  Sorry!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 13 juin 2014 - 09:12 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I was annoyed that they removed it, most complaints I saw was asking for better controls and terrain 

 

This isn't as trivial as you might think though.  Control schemes aren't as bad, but "terrain" can mean a wide variety of things and it comes across as "I'd like it if you spent more time working to make the content that uses it better."  But I'd argue that that can be true of almost any aspect of a game.

[Allan Schumacher]

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART. Absolutely all I wanted to know. I've picked a not-at-the-top-of-likely-demographics Inquisitor. I've been worried I'd only get one option, I was worried I'd get no option at all, but knowing I've got a choice of two, whoever they turn out to be? Couldn't be happier. I just didn't want an experience where I was actually going backwards from the amount of choice I had in DA2.

 

Seriously, I can breathe easy now. Thank you.

 

 

Just to be clear, I know that orientation as a choice exists across races.  I don't know if it's necessarily the case for any particularly single playthrough with a particular Inquisitor.  As David said, that aspect is something that is seen as less of a requirement in terms of being equal/fair.

 

I know that's instant buzzkill, but the worst thing I want is for you to be ultra enthusiastic because I wasn't clear on what I said, because that will only lead to ultra disappointment which I definitely do not want.  Sorry!

 

 

I should probably defer a bit more since I don't know 100% of the details and I've probably already spent more time here than I should have today >.> (work work....)

[Allan Schumacher]

Removed some posts.

 

 

Reminder, please restrict displays of schadenfreude.  While I can understand a feeling of "aha, now you know how I feel" in general I want to keep antagonistic posts down in this thread.

 

 

I removed most of The Witcher talk mostly because it spawned from similar posts and I didn't feel like retroactively altering posts to remove the references to deleted posts.  I'm okay if you wish to compare with The Witcher, but remember to be understanding that some people prefer Dragon Age over The Witcher, some prefer The Witcher over Dragon Age, and to keep it civil and courteous.  It's okay if someone doesn't like The Witcher.  It's okay if someone is a big fan of The Witcher.

 

Thanks.

[Allan Schumacher]

Allan! How do you feel about The Witcher?

 

I played the first game late so I think that negatively affects my perspective somewhat (I enjoyed it well enough but it didn't quite hit the right notes for me, it seems), but I actually enjoyed the second a fair bit.  The narrative was solid and I gave full marks to a lot of the nuanced animations and whatnot that seemed to make Geralt come alive.

[Allan Schumacher]

Race restriction for romance...

isn't this racist?

"Oh, he's white. I'm Asian. Asian aren't suppose to like white boy. So no I can't like him. Even though he's so nice to me and all"

Sexual orientation is one thing I don't like but I'll probably accept it at one point. But this race thing is a bit over the line for me.

 

I thought Bioware game was about freedom of choice. Not "if you want to get close with A, pick race B only."

 

I'm pretty comfortable saying that it isn't racist.  Some will disagree with me, but none of the restrictions are not the real world.  If you play a character that looks like an asian, none of the characters will refuse based on the colour of your skin.  Unless your argument is that we're being racist towards fictional groups that don't exist in reality?

 

 

As for a large part of the reasoning as to why a decision like this is made, please read the first post of the thread.

[Allan Schumacher]

So, racism is just about color of your skin now? I always thought racism has deeper meaning than that, like social+belief+etc.

 

And 'Oh it's fictional stuff so it doesn't really matter." is not good enough to me, my friend. But whatever.

First we got sexual restriction

Then we got race restriction.

Next thing we know, one companion would probably outright refuse to talk with me if I'm mage or something. There you go : Class restriction.

 

No, it's far more likely that there's race restrictions because we wanted to create other romances and working around finite manpower we can apply to the situation because we felt some of those romances were pretty interesting.

 

There may be some level of race restriction on other means, but saying more than this turns into legit spoiler territory.

 

 

What I am saying, however, is that I don't consider this to be "racist" in the same term that the word is used in reality, because it involves fictional groups.  This is largely done to ensure that no one in reality is a member of a said oppressed group.  I am much more okay with elves being oppressed in our game as opposed to black people.  But this isn't even related to romance content at this point.  It's perhaps "racist" within the confines of the game world, but I'm struggling to see how it would make BioWare racist to do stuff like this. 

 

 

Class restriction is something that could be considered as well, though to my knowledge we don't.  If we did, it'd probably only apply to mages since mages are very, very different than anything we have in reality.  There's no comparison.

[Allan Schumacher]

That's impossible tbh With that set sexuality thing, everyone will be a little mad, sadly.

 

People would be disappointed even if the characters were all bisexual, simply because it would decrease the chances of a different character they like being a romance option.  It happened with Varric in DA2.

[Allan Schumacher]

I thought the whole reasoning behind the DA2 system was that it was the easiest, most economical way to give everyone options.

 

It gives people options.  But it does nothing to make people that want to romance a particular character any happier when they learn they can't.  There were fights when Varric was confirmed to not be a romance in DA2.

 

The only way to be "fair" is if everyone is romanceable (and you could still make a compelling that if no one likes any of the companions that much, it's still not fair), or if no one is romanceable.

[Allan Schumacher]

I doubt as many people would be disappointed with that. I think this new solution just creates more disappointments. Not the equal amount of disappointments. And not less.

 

Fundamentally it's about people being upset that a character they wanted to romance is not available for their character to romance.  If the issue is because people can get jealous or frustrated because that character can be romanced by a different type of character, we move into places that I'm not 100% sure if that's as valid of an impetus for us to do something about it compared to things like representation.

 

But I'm also speaking as someone that is indifferent towards romances in games that I play.  If they are there yay, if not, it's still good.  So perhaps there's a perspective that I'm not understanding?

 

It may also be the idea of what choice means in a video game.  Since I am not a believer in "choice lets me drive the narrative in ways that I would want to to drive it in" but rather "choice affords me meaningful, ideally difficult, context appropriate alternatives for situations."  So for someone that goes "I think it'd be a great story if I could romance X with this character" there's frustration.  But when I game, it's a non-issue.  Is there something that I am missing?

[Allan Schumacher]

I can't speak for everyone. The only thing I think you're missing is that it's insulting what they think is going to appeal to a certain orientation. "Oh you guys are in this category. Then you'll surely just like these two."

 

It doesn't work like that. People are attracted to specifics. Not to orientation.

 

This is an inherent restriction for romance in general.  I don't agree that we make characters with the idea of "this is going to appeal to a certain orientation."

 

I full on concede that for any group that thinks that a romanceable character is awesome, there's going to be groups that think that that romanceable character is not awesome.

 

 

You're the first person I've seen state that the attempts at improving representation is insulting, however.  Unless I've missed something.  But like, there are heterosexuals that didn't care for any of the romance interests in Baldur's Gate 2, which was a game that very much focused on straight men.

 

 

I think we can both agree that it's impossible to make a character that is universally appealing to everyone (of a particular orientation or otherwise).  I also feel that if everyone is given at least two options, then their pick of the pool is at worst, exactly the same as DA2's who only granted two matchings with a particular orientation; four if you opted to play as a bisexual character.

 

Are you saying it's insulting to the fans of say, Varric, because he wasn't romanceable in DA2 and those that wanted to romance him were out of luck while those that enjoyed the other romances got to unfairly reap the rewards of romance content?