19658 réponses à ce sujet

[Maria Caliban]

So would this mean only one will be race-gated now?

Two are currently race-gated. IB was the third.

[TheLastSuperSaiyan87]

no they confirmed we still have 2 race gated options 

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't think it's fair to say that it lacks perspective.

 

Many men felt the #YesAllWomen wasn't fair either. I consider it precisely because they lacked the perspective.
 

I just try to think of players as individuals rather than groups. Some people will be coming in having played every Bioware game to date, others will be coming in fresh. 
 
Those coming in fresh will have never experienced having less options or having more options. If a straight players comes in to Inquisition having never played a Bioware game before and finds they have less options then they would be just as entitled to be upset as gay people who went into Mass Effect 3 and found they had less options. It's easy to say that the group always got more, but not all of that group necessarily played the games or experienced having more.

Unless they're completely new to gaming, I don't find the "coming in fresh" argument all that meaningful. They'd have to be completely devoid of other exposure to romantic distribution in games (and maybe even all media consumption).  Given that our games do not exist in a cultural vacuum, the only way I could see a straight male feeling "entitled to be upset" because they have a personal experience of being consistently denied opportunities to consume positive content that depicts heterosexual relationships while being exposed to primarily other forms of romantic experiences.

 

This is what the concept of (male) heterosexual privilege is, because in my experiences it's only an issue once they see the consequences, and then suddenly it's an issue of "all equal all the time."  The thing is, I'm not actually against any particular orientation occasionally having additional options because sometimes things just work out that way.  But there's a caveat, and that's examining whether or not it's reinforcing particularly problematic viewpoints.  So yes, if it were up to me (and it's not) I'd be predisposed against giving straight males additional romance options over other ones simply because others haven't benefited as much from some extra focus.  And I have no problems with some people occasionally getting additional stuff sometimes not as a form of pandering, but because we think that that can make for an interesting narrative.

 

And although it's walking on thin ice, you also get to the whole demographics thing. There are more straight players than gay players, so a larger number of people have less options than in the other games. A larger number of new players will have come in and been faced with less options than in any other game with uneven LI distributions. 
 
It's just... messy trying to decide what's right and what's not. It's why I take my admittedly black-and-white stance that no one group having less options is better than another group having less options.

The demographics argument is irrelevant to me because the existence of LGBT content doesn't preclude straight gamers from still consuming that content and enjoying it. As such, I don't consider it to be excluding straight gamers.  At this point I'm almost at the point of doing a lets play of our games as LGBT characters just to prove this point....

If it bothers a straight male, then yes I think that that straight male lacks perspective for why it's not actually equivalent when examined beyond the scope of a single game that isn't built in a vacuum.

[AirWerewolf]

I want Viv to be available to my fem-qunari. But I feel that even if she is lesbian/bi, she'll be race-gated toward excluding all but humans. Damn you, HUMANS!

As some have expressed, I think that the remaining two romances will be males. Then of the five available males romances, two will be race-gated to work as "one romance" i.e. one gated for human/elf, the other for qunari/dwarf. Why? The 6:3 split (never forget!) and I suspect a similar split in romances, unfortunately.

[Allan Schumacher]

I meant within f/m constraints. I should've clarified to be fair.

 

I know. But will it restrict me to one f/m romance is my question? If the answer to that is no I will celebrate.

 

I was being universal.  No matter what type of character you wish to play (within the confines that we tend to, for better or worse, adhere to a binary gender convention) choosing your race will not deny you choices.

 

 

EDIT: At least I'm 99% sure this is the case (it wasn't always).... I'll need to confirm.

[javeart]

It wouldn't necessarily need to be. My point was more that the people who are looking for 'even Steven' splits might be barking up the wrong tree.

There is an uneven distribution of companions with regard to gender, which people said wouldn't happen. And now we find out that there were, up until very recently, uneven distributions of gated companions as well. It wouldn't surprise me if it's a 5/3 gender spoilt for romances as well.

 

I see... I still have hope though, because it's different to have more race-gated options for straight women and gay men that simply having more options, race-gated or not. I might being naive, but still think it's going to be 2/4/2 and 4/4

[azarhal]

I still feel pretty confident that it's going to be a 2/4/2 sexuality split.  I'm not so confident that it's going to be a 4/4 gender split though.

 

The thing that I just can't shake is that there were going to be three race-gated LI's until IB got 'fixed' and they've been pretty clear that providing choices for all race/gender/sexuality combos is important (hence, The Chart ™).  I think that this has implications for who the last two LI's are.  I wouldn't be surprised to see two race-gated bisexual male LI's (or maybe a race-gated straight and race-gated bi male LI each) as the last two.

 

Vivienne's Valentine's Day card might have been a clue too.  I do wish I could be her Valentine, but I suspect that she is just teasing me......

 

They did the Chart™ because they wanted to be sure that every race/gender/sexuality combos had choices (even if they were not equals). This mean that there was never a 2/2/2 for everyone among the LIs otherwise they wouldn't have needed it. This also mean that the two added LIs were meant to fill in the missing racial choices way more than being just "extra", but they didn't limit them to just those sub-choices because that wouldn't fit the characters.

 

With IronBull being probably gated when they did the chart (I see him as being there for Qunari mostly), this mean another race-gated LI is male and there is another male bisexual, but it doesn't mean he is race-gated.  So males had at the minimum two race-gated LIs last summer.

 

The problem with that though is that if Cassandra or Sera are gated, Vivienne cannot be gated. At the same time, if Cassandra or Sera are not race-gated, Vivienne is not needed at all to fill in a racial gap.

 

I really suspect the gating was 3-ways among males and that would mean the two last LIs are males to fill in the racial gaps.

[Fizzie Panda]

I just want to know who the romances actually are

[Ryzaki]

I was being universal.  No matter what type of character you wish to play (within the confines that we tend to, for better or worse, adhere to a binary gender convention) choosing your race will not deny you choices.

 

 

EDIT: At least I'm 99% sure this is the case (it wasn't always).... I'll need to confirm.

 

Ooh good good

 

Thx Allan

[javeart]

They did the Chart™ because they wanted to be sure that every race/gender/sexuality combos had choices (even if they were not equals). This mean that there was never a 2/2/2 for everyone among the LIs otherwise they wouldn't have needed it. This also mean that the two added LIs were meant to fill in the missing racial choices way more than being just "extra", but they didn't limit them to just those sub-choices because that wouldn't fit the characters.

 

With IronBull being probably gated when they did the chart (I see him as being there for Qunari mostly), this mean another race-gated LI is male and there is another male bisexual, but it doesn't mean he is race-gated.  So males had at the minimum two race-gated LIs last summer.

 

The problem with that though is that if Cassandra or Sera are gated, Vivienne cannot be gated. At the same time, if Cassandra or Sera are not race-gated, Vivienne is not needed at all to fill in a racial gap.

 

I really suspect the gating was 3-ways among males and that would mean the two last LIs are males to fill in the racial gaps.

 

But why would they add more race-gated males to fill the gaps, when they could simply get rid of the race-gating in the already existent LIs?

[Kirie]

I just want to know who the romances actually are

Same. Even if we had a timeframe (and no, NOT "between now and October") but something a little more concrete I'd be at least a tad bit happier and less antsy.

 

The fact that they said they have no "official" time in mind to release the information, really kind of worries me :/

[Fizzie Panda]

Same. Even if we had a timeframe (and no, NOT "between now and October") but something a little more concrete I'd be at least a tad bit happier and less antsy.

 

The fact that they said they have no "official" time in mind to release the information, really kind of worries me :/

I know!! If we can't know who, I'd really like to know when, so my hopes won't get dashed EVERY SINGLE BLOODY DAY

[Ianamus]

 

Unless they're completely new to gaming, I don't find the "coming in fresh" argument all that meaningful. They'd have to be completely devoid of other exposure to romantic distribution in games (and maybe even all media consumption). 

 

This is one of the things about this that I always struggle to really "get" though. I find it hard to see "gay players not getting romance options" as a prominent thing, because so few games even have romance content at all. The only AAA games with romance options I've played personally outside of Bioware are by either Obsidian and Bethesda, and I'd say that at least half if not more of them had m/m options, and even more had at least one f/f option.

 

And that's not getting into visual novels, because I suppose they don't really count. Let's just say that I've played more than a few that had a male protagonist and consisted almost entirely of m/m romance content. It was actually really amusing to play a game where there were about a dozen male options and a "token chick". 

 

Either way, I accept that they tend to have fewer romances, but I don't really see it to be a "big thing" like sexism in games just because so few games have romance content at all. 

 

 

If it bothers a straight male, then yes I think that that straight male lacks perspective for why it's not actually equivalent when examined beyond the scope of a single game that isn't built in a vacuum.

 

It doesn't affect me personally because giving the gay male players more options and the straight male players less results in the number of choices for me. I just try to look at things from everyone's perspective. 

[Reynes-of-Castamere]

Crazy idea but why not just let the writers add whatever romances they want to or think would add to the game and story rather than some sort of bizarre "please the fanbase" formula that seems to exist in this thread. So DA:I "needs" 2 straight, 2 gay, 2 bi, meeting a certain racial criteria, and an equal ratio of male to female. Anything else? Or evidently all romance options being bi apparently works somehow?

Quantity does not equal quality. If its all about options to sleep with whatever you want just add a brothel and be done with it. DA:O's supposed "lack of options" seemed perfectly fine to me on all of my playthroughs.

[daveliam]

This is one of the thing that always confuses me though. I find it hard to see "gay players not getting romance options" as a prominent thing, because so few games even have romance content at all. The only games with romance options I've played personally outside of Bioware are by either Obsidian and Bethesda, and I'd say that at least half if not more of them had m/m/ and f/f options. And that's not getting into visual novels, because I suppose they only sort of count. Let's just say that I've played more than a few that had a male protagonist and consisted almost entirely of m/m romance content.



It doesn't affect me personally because giving the gay male players more options and the straight male players less results in the number of choices for me. I just try to look at things from everyone's perspective.

We only have options in 6 out of 11 Bioware games and they are, by far, the best. I know of not a single other game with a scripted m/m romance. I know of many games with o/s romances: Phantasy Star 3, all three of the Record of Agarest War games, Bound By Flames, Alpha Protocol.... And that's just off the top of my head without stopping to think.

[Shark17676]

Wow, no one is saying that at all. The discussion has been very calm and civil and then you jump in and basically accuse us of being greedy? Almost everyone here is saying that they HOPE the options are even, BUT if for some reason they can't be, it would be nice for someone who has never gotten extra options to have a turn. How is that hard to understand?

 

I don't understand how this could've been so grossly misinterpreted, either.

[TheLastSuperSaiyan87]

Yeah the marketing strategy behind revealing these LI's is starting to wear down everyone I think 

[javeart]

Crazy idea but why not just let the writers add whatever romances they want to or think would add to the game and story rather than some sort of bizarre "please the fanbase" formula that seems to exist in this thread. So DA:I "needs" 2 straight, 2 gay, 2 bi, meeting a certain racial criteria, and an equal ratio of male to female. Anything else? Or evidently all romance options being bi apparently works somehow?

Quantity does not equal quality. If its all about options to sleep with whatever you want just add a brothel and be done with it. DA:O's supposed "lack of options" seemed perfectly fine to me on all of my playthroughs.

 

The lack of options in DA:O was not supposed, gay men had one option, gay women had one option

[javeart]

Also, I don't know why quotas bother people so much. I mean it's obvious the world still needs them in pretty much almost every issue one can think of. I'm a big supporter of quotas, quotas are good 

[Allan Schumacher]

This is one of the things about this that I always struggle to really "get" though. I find it hard to see "gay players not getting romance options" as a prominent thing, because so few games even have romance content at all. The only AAA games with romance options I've played personally outside of Bioware are by either Obsidian and Bethesda, and I'd say that at least half if not more of them had m/m options, and even more had at least one f/f option.

 

It's not just interactive romance content though. But I mean, BioWare's first game with romances had 3 women for straight guys, 1 (annoying) man for straight women. It wasn't until Dragon Age: Origins that we explored this more thoroughly and openly.

Ignoring this, there's other games that still have romantic connotations. Alyx and Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. Mario and Peach.  Uncharted has Nathan Drake have sex with women.  David Cage's games have featured heterosexual love scenes.  Tamagotchi Life doesn't allow gay relationships.  Max Payne goes crazy because he lost his wife.  My compile just finished so I have to stop, but I bet I could go on for a very long time pointing out video games that have you play heterosexual characters just from memory while the number of games that I can think of by memory where I can play a gay man.... all still provide the choice to be heterosexual (i.e. RPGs that have customizable protagonists).

[daveliam]

And straight men had two and straight women had two. What's the point here? Two being a vast increase over one? It is only a supposed issue when you consider the greater picture of the game having four LIs total and options for gay players. Plus a brothel.

The issue is that two and one is the difference between a choice in your romance and no choice in your romance.

Also, for almost everyone who talks about romance on the boards, it's not about sex with the romance, it's about the story of the relationship.

[Maria Caliban]

There's something I've noticed, and I'm not sure why it is.

Straight men have mostly gotten over Sera. Straight women have mostly gotten over Dorian. Gay men are still somewhat crushing on Cullen, but... Cassandra?

I browse other sites and it seems many women are just not letting Cassandra go. It's not just a handful of people saying they want mods, but lots and lots of women who are swearing to headcanon this lady queer.

Does anyone have a theory about what's going on here?