168 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

It's more insulting that you've made a human heavy group, tbh. The orientation thing just complicated it. I'm pretty sure no matter what happens, as a straight guy (even with bisexual options), I'll be left with only human characters. And none even a down to earth type of character to boot. This is going to be a serious game, it looks like. I didn't want to play that way. At least not as the years go by. I was hoping to mix it up a bit. I promise you'll get one or two playthroughs out of me though.

 

Well it's unfortunate that you find it insulting, though I can understand feeling disappointed.  In any case, hopefully upon playing some of your concerns are assuaged.

[Allan Schumacher]

They do.  Though your specialists (and perhaps others) can show up for significant parts of missions too.

[Allan Schumacher]

At the risk of sounding cynical, wasn't a major reason behind the "we want diverse sexualities" stance a desire to wall-off same-sex content behind certain characters and "preserve" others as straight, rather than necessarily being interested in them or their stories?

 

It's also possible that it's a different group of individuals speaking up now.

[Allan Schumacher]

But f/f action for straight males are almost always hot :-p
How many straight females talk about m/m action?

 

I'm indifferent to "f/f action" but in my experiences, women are much more likely to be open about "m/m action" and even find it attractive.

 

Zev is accessible to straight, bi and gay pc. While alistair is for fems only.

 

Confirming that there are people that are unaffected by the fact that he is bisexual.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm not disputing this, but I've yet to find a single woman who thinks that m/m action is hot, so I don't think it's as prevalent as f/f 'appreciation' amongst men.

 

Be careful with anecdotes based on personal experience.  They are powerful to our mind, but our own experiences are such a small subset of reality and over reliance on them is often what leads to incorrect assumptions.  There's also a degree of sexual objectification that goes on too (a lot of f/f action depicted in media is, for example, also construed as an invitation for men.

 

Much of my personal experiences while growing up were very heteronormative, but a lot of that is also because being gay was something that would get you teased and so forth.  So based on my experiences, I'd likely underestimate the prevalance of non-heterosexual identities.

[Allan Schumacher]

My bf and I talked about it while drunk-ish. Curiosity is there but its not something we consider doing.

 

You seem to be thinking that if your boyfriend was bisexual, he'd be encouraging you to do more than doing things exclusively with each other.

 

 

For instance, if I were in a monogamous relationship with a bisexual woman, I wouldn't expect what we do to be different than if I was in a monogamous relationship with a heterosexual woman.  That she's bisexual simply means that, if single, she'd be open to relationships with men or women.  That doesn't mean she wants to do anything with anyone other than me while in a relationship with me.

[Allan Schumacher]

So it's fine if the male Qunari are wearing nothing but it's not okay if the females aren't. Ok.

 

If someone comes in to talk about how they dislike the male Qunari design they are well within their right to do so.

 

I consider your contributions to be intentionally derailing.  Some people will have issues with the Qunari woman from the comic, others will not.  Telling either of them to not share their perspective isn't necessary.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just gonna add my two cents to what I think this meant... I think it's less that the writers don't want to write a Qunari romance because people might fetishize it and more that they aren't going to write a romance solely because a subset of people find that particular character model attractive. The same goes for any race, they aren't gonna add a dwarf romance just because "Hey, some people like dwarves!". If they add a dwarf romance it will be because they developed a dwarven character that they think will make a good romance.

 

This is my impression as well.  As Luke mentioned in the Sera thread, we do try to create characters first.

[Allan Schumacher]

Witcher talk stops....

[Allan Schumacher]

Sex scenes in gaming add more realism and depth to the game IMO. I feel like Bioware could push the rating more but ****** Fox news would be all over their asses. I mean, ME1 barley showed anything(side boob, that's it) and Fox has to call it Sex Effect?! For real!? One scene and it's branded porn?! GTFO Fox. Devs shouldn't be afraid of news misinterpreting the game because the news journalists aren't the ones buying the games, the players are. 

 

I think people overstate the impact of the Mass Effect sex controversy.

[Allan Schumacher]

Mass Effect carries a 15 rating so that suits the game. DA carries an 18 rating so I'm not sure why they can't just show people having sex,like you know people do. 

 

Because we don't want to?  If it helps you can consider us all prudes I guess.

[Allan Schumacher]

I understand that. You guys are focused on creating deep/interesting characters. That's great!

 

However, if people want a Qunari character with a romance storyline. Why can't you guys create a deep/interesting Qunari character with a romance storyline.

 

Why must we?

[Allan Schumacher]

I at least am not claiming that Bioware *must* do anything, but I've read certain statements that can lead one to think that some of the game designers are opposed to this in principle because they consider it fetishistic, and thus somehow demeaning.  It sometimes seems like expressing sexual attraction to a character model that *is* sexually attractive somehow sullies and dirties any thought of producing a romance with a character like that.   It can come off that sexual attraction is never a valid basis for beginning a meaningful relationship, which is just bizarre.  *Many* meaningful relationships start in precisely this way.

 

It means that we're not going to make a racial companion romanceable solely on the basis of "people want to have a romance with someone of this race."

 

Note, also, that "sexual attraction" includes things beyond physical appearance.

 

 

Why, specifically, do you want to romance a Qunari?  Would it still be satisfying if we made a Qunari love interest but it happened that you weren't particularly attracted to the character model we happened to use for that particular Qunari?

[Allan Schumacher]

Stories end. I want the romance to have a good ending.

 

I have reservations, though, about sharing too much about what the player character does after the end of the game since it poses risks to player agency.

 

I think it needs to be handled carefully.

[Allan Schumacher]

But at the same time, saying "And then X disappeared, never to be seen again" doesn't say much for agency either 

 

There's nothing perfect, but at the same time that does allow for more versatility than, say "The Hero of Ferelden returned to Denerim to become a captain of the guard" or some such thing.

 

Of course, we could allow for some level of agency (at least on a grand scale) in an epilogue too.

[Allan Schumacher]

...unless he's messing with us?

 

Mr. Schumacher, are you messing with us?

 

I think that people overthink and overanalyze (I do too) when the simpler solution as to why I'm interacting about this topic is simply because I have a tendency to visit threads I've already posted in, and also have a tendency to visit threads that tend to become heated as some form of keeping the peace.  I see something and then respond to it.

 

I'm careful to not try to tip either a yes or a no.  But making a character romanceable simply because some people find them attractive isn't all that compelling in and of itself.  I think all the characters are reasonably attractive, some more than others.  Varric is handsome, but he wasn't a romance.  Many people sure wanted him to be a romance though.

 

 

Speaking personally, with all my biases for what I want and the messaging I like portray, my focus on making romances is much more about the character than how they look, because we have such a finite selection to choose from for romances.  Make a character (human, elf, qunari, dwarf) romanceable if there's something interesting to add via romance.  As opposed to "lets go in with the goal of making this Qunari romanceable because that's what some people want."  There's a compelling argument for *any* character to be romanced based on fans thinking that they look attractive.  Merril both looks and behaves quite a bit different than Sera, for instance, even if they're both elves.  People also overstate things like Cullen being romanceable "because fans asked for it" (I know for a fact there's internal interest from some people to explore a romance with Cullen).

 

So if it were up to me to make a Qunari romanceable, it'd be because the character created lends themselves to be a interesting candidate for a romance.  Not because "oh wow this character sure is physically attractive" (since it may not even be known how attractive the character will ultimately end up).

[Allan Schumacher]

Lol, are you joking ? Of course he's in it because he was popular, there's even a tweet from I dont know if it was Schumacher, Gaider or someone else that state something like this.

 

I have literally stated in this thread the completely opposite perspective.  Please feel free to reread my posts.

[Allan Schumacher]

It has to do with animations being too hard.

 

I want all the romance options to be Bisexual, but its just not going to happen.

 

Noooooooo.  That has more impact on things like race gating.  Representation, however, is something different (and something I know I value a lot more).

 

Sera was made a lesbian because we wanted to make her a lesbian.

[Allan Schumacher]

Well, Bioware apparently has the VAs record the entire script for both genders, so that's not true. It's why you have hilarious ME1 dialogue with Meer reading the FShep lines in the Liara romance, I believe. 

 

Everyone needs to hear MShep protest - in his usual bland tone - that he's a woman at least once in their life. 

 

I actually don't know if this is still the case or if that was just a function of ME's development process (I never worked on ME).  Are there mismatched lines for DA2?

[Allan Schumacher]

so you play a set way every single time? You really don't understand the definition of role playing if that's the case.

 

Lets not get into a semantics war of what is or is not the "correct" way to play an RPG.  Thanks.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just a small interjection from a German native speaker you aren't 'schadenfreude' but you are 'schadenfreudig'. 'Schadenfreude' is a noun, the corresponding adjective was never Germanized.

 

Actually I missed the word "much" now that I look at it ->  "... how much schadenfreude ..."

[Allan Schumacher]

When I click on quote, no quote appears in my text box to edit. Like I am now apparently "replying directly" to JobacNoor's post (I clicked on "quote" in the bottom left corner of the post) and all I see is my text.. Something is afoot.

 

There's issues with Internet Explorer.

 

Alternatively you can put what you want within [ quote] tags (it's what I often do when I only want to respond to a slice).

[Allan Schumacher]

So you've never witnessed this process of both the male and female VAs recording every line just to make sure nothing is missed? What I mean to ask is, as far as you are aware, is this not standard procedure for Bioware games (or video games in general)?

 

I know it happened for ME1.  I don't know if it happened for DA2 (or continues to happen)

[Allan Schumacher]

Respectfully, sir, i was only quoting what you said in regards to "making everyone bisexual".

 

Given the comment of who i was responding to, i dont believe i was inaccurate.

 

Then I need to clarify and I apologize for not being clearer.  Making everyone bisexual would take more time yes, which creates a barrier to making everyone all bisexual. 

 

But we're placing more emphasis on representation with this aspect.  Even if we had infinite time, we wouldn't have all the romanceable companions be bisexual.

[Allan Schumacher]

Why do y'all make RPGs with a Romance element and not the other way around? Inquisitor of Love- Age of the "Dragon"

 

It's the game we want to make.