1591 réponses à ce sujet

[Terodil]

And how is treating bisexuality as a compromise to let people romance who they want not wrong?

Why is bisexuality a bad thing?

[AppalachianApex]

Yeah, it kind of sucks. But not every player can have everything equally. They tried to do that with Dragon Age 2, and that didn't exactly go over well.

[CathyMe]

And how is treating bisexuality as a compromise to let people romance who they want not wrong?

*Disgusted noise* Tell me about it

Given how I'm bisexual, i find it irritating when it used as a mean to remove gender restrictions for whiners who can't accept that some people don't like you that way.  If you don't like any of the LI options for your character, simply don't romance them. In ME, if Garrus wouldn't have been a romance option , my shep would have simply been without a LI. Although, I think some of this thinking exists because, in BW games, it's not a truly meaningful relationship until you bang. Also, I don't get why they complain that cullen isn't bisexual, since in origins he was established as straight. It's bad enough that they retconned Anders sexuality in DA2.

[wright1978]

And how is treating bisexuality as a compromise to let people romance who they want not wrong?

The sexuality of many of the li in da2 is ambiguous. You have to bring in outside play through experience to label say merrill as bi-sexual. I very much prefer this open approach where sexuality is free to interpretation and li aren't gated off.

[AresKeith]

Why is bisexuality a bad thing?

I never said it's a bad thing, but treating it as a compromise is

[AresKeith]

The sexuality of many of the li in da2 is ambiguous. You have to bring in outside play through experience to label say merrill as bi-sexual. I very much prefer this open approach where sexuality is free to interpretation and li aren't gated off.

They were all confirmed bisexual after that

[Felya87]

*Disgusted noise* Tell me about it

Given how I'm bisexual, i find it irritating when it used as a mean to remove gender restrictions for whiners who can't accept that some people don't like you that way.  If you don't like any of the LI options for your character, simply don't romance them. In ME, if Garrus wouldn't have been a romance option in ME, my shep would have simply been without a LI. Although, I think some of this thinking exists because, in BW games, it's not a truly meaningful relationship until you bang. Also, I don't get why they complain that cullen isn't bisexual, since in origins he was established as straight. It's bad enough that they retconned Anders sexuality in DA2.

 

And with Kaidan, it would have been the third male to "reveal" his bisexuality. A little tiredly as thrope. Not that it would have changed something for me. But if with Kaidan and Anders it was already intended for them to be bi, and some little dialogue here and there could be seen as a sign of it (very very hard to see), with Cullen there never was any sign that he would have been interested in males.

Expecially in Orign there is no doubt he isn't interested in males. And even in DA2 he still remeber a female mage Warden. His retcon would have been really out of character to me, and I think this is the primary motivation his bisexuality was dropped in the end.

 

I would be against the DA2 approach but for a simple motivation: we would get only four LI. two for every sexuality, just as with the 2/2/2 approach, but much less content overall, since the same Li would be "recicled" for everyone.

[Terodil]

I never said it's a bad thing, but treating it as a compromise is

That's an arbitrary judgment. I don't agree.

A good thing doesn't suddenly turn bad simply because it's suggested as a relatively efficient solution to a number of mechanical / resource-related issues in a VG.

[wright1978]

They were all confirmed bisexual after that

 

The devs can say what they want post game. In game they were deliberately went for ambiguity rather than specificity. That's the approach i favour. What we've already got is an artificial market and then claiming that it is ok to add certain arbitrary gates, whilst not gating on the multiple other aspects if what you care about is specificity.

Want to tell specific stories based on a sexuality well there's plenty of NPC and non romance companions outside the tiny LI market to do so imo.

[Shechinah]

And with Kaidan, it would have been the third male to "reveal" his bisexuality. A little tiredly as thrope. Not that it would have changed something for me. But if with Kaidan and Anders it was already intended for them to be bi, and some little dialogue here and there could be seen as a sign of it (very very hard to see), with Cullen there never was any sign that he would have been interested in males.

Expecially in Orign there is no doubt he isn't interested in males. And even in DA2 he still remeber a female mage Warden. His retcon would have been really out of character to me, and I think this is the primary motivation his bisexuality was dropped in the end.

The discovery that Kaidan was bisexuality was not very surprising to me because he had lines that could be interpreted as him having feelings that ran deeper than they seemed even if he did not realise it himself. The somewhat infamous line on Horizon: "losing you was like losing an arm", comes to mind.

 

Anders' bisexuality was believable with his character, to me, in part because of the additional lore about the Fereldan Circle and because he had a line with Nathaniel in Awakening that be interpreted as flirtatous because of how it was delivered by the voice actor; "Not when I'm naked I don't"

 

Cullen's bisexuality would have been significantly harder for me to find believable with his character because of the focus that were on the female Warden in their origin and return to the Circle Tower. Granted, he could have realised he had an attraction to men as well later in his life but without any lines that could be interpreted otherwise like with Kaidan or Anders, it would seem like it was developed just to make him a romance for both genders as oppose to making sense within his character.

[AresKeith]

The devs can say what they want post game. In game they were deliberately went for ambiguity rather than specificity. That's the approach i favour. What we've already got is an artificial market and then claiming that it is ok to add certain arbitrary gates, whilst not gating on the multiple other aspects if what you care about is specificity.

Want to tell specific stories based on a sexuality well there's plenty of NPC and non romance companions outside the tiny LI market to do so imo.

 

Really? So it's wrong for a character to be attracted to a certain gender or race, I agree that other aspects should be added

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with "gating" other than the fact people can't romance who they want

[wright1978]

Really? So it's wrong for a character to be attracted to a certain gender or race, I agree that other aspects should be added

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with "gating" other than the fact people can't romance who they want

 

I said i disliked the gating approach. I said it was wrong to offer one orientation vastly more potential options. More gating would lead to more restriction, likely less choice or content barring vastly increased romance resources. So yeah unrestricted choice within the pool of options is my preference. There's nothing wrong with an open approach that suits the character they are roleplaying.

[BansheeOwnage]

Ah, I wondered why this thread had another page. Now I know: This debate Being somewhere in the middle (I recognize advantages of both systems) I'm really not sure what to say.

[CDR Aedan Cousland]

Ah, I wondered why this thread had another page. Now I know: This debate Being somewhere in the middle (I recognize advantages of both systems) I'm really not sure what to say.

 

Same here! I just want to see where this goes and see what points both sides can come up with.

[DirkJake]

I like both 2/2/2 and all bi/pan, though I prefer 2/2/2 simply because I agree with what David Gaider commented on DA2 romance (from gaymerx interview)

 

 

Every time I said that if we had the resources, if we had enough romances to go around, I would prefer to have set sexualities. And that making all of them bisexual is a compromise of sorts - not one I really like, because bisexuality itself is not a compromise - it's a distinct sexuality. But, I didn't want to tell four bisexual stories so it even varied in DA2. Isabela, for instance, is very open about her sexuality. She talks about romancing either sex. Then you go all the way to Merrill, who doesn't mention it at all, and the idea was to leave room for ambiguity, but where we ultimately ended up on is that ambiguity wasn't necessarily helpful. I know some people like it, some people really hated it, some people diluted their characters and that led to...that sort of ran down a road of where people called player-sexuality, which isn't a term I really like. Because it implies the player's perception of their sexuality dictates their sexuality.. dictates the reality of their sexuality. So, that if you're a man romancing Merrill, because she never talks about her sexuality, that lets to pretend that she's straight if you like? But you seeing her as straight does not make her straight. She is bisexual, even if you're not exposed to that. That's the same as a bisexual person - a bisexual woman could be in a current romance in a man. That doesn't make her straight - that makes her bisexual. Us changing that wasn't that we didn't want to deal with that - it's that... okay, getting away from that ambiguity with that - okay, we like to have set sexualities so we can tell different stories. We can have actual representation. We can tell stories so that they are bisexual stories adjacent to gay stories and straight stories, as well. It's about having all types of people and not needing the ambiguity means we can include having that part of their character.

 

Essentially 2/2/2 has better representation of LGB, but I would be okay with all-bi system if resource is too limiting to implement 2/2/2.

 

 

 

 

Anders' bisexuality was believable with his character, to me, in part because of the additional lore about the Fereldan Circle and because he had a line with Nathaniel in Awakening that be interpreted as flirtatous because of how it was delivered by the voice actor; "Not when I'm naked I don't"

 

 

 

Agreed. Now that the World of Thedas vol. 2 is out, his story shows that

Spoiler

he was in a relationship with Karl.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

David Gaider commented on DA2 romance (from gaymerx interview)

 

Every time I said that if we had the resources, if we had enough romances to go around, I would prefer to have set sexualities. And that making all of them bisexual is a compromise of sorts - not one I really like, because bisexuality itself is not a compromise - it's a distinct sexuality. But, I didn't want to tell four bisexual stories so it even varied in DA2. Isabela, for instance, is very open about her sexuality. She talks about romancing either sex. Then you go all the way to Merrill, who doesn't mention it at all, and the idea was to leave room for ambiguity, but where we ultimately ended up on is that ambiguity wasn't necessarily helpful. I know some people like it, some people really hated it, some people diluted their characters and that led to...that sort of ran down a road of where people called player-sexuality, which isn't a term I really like. Because it implies the player's perception of their sexuality dictates their sexuality.. dictates the reality of their sexuality. So, that if you're a man romancing Merrill, because she never talks about her sexuality, that lets to pretend that she's straight if you like? But you seeing her as straight does not make her straight. She is bisexual, even if you're not exposed to that. That's the same as a bisexual person - a bisexual woman could be in a current romance in a man. That doesn't make her straight - that makes her bisexual. Us changing that wasn't that we didn't want to deal with that - it's that... okay, getting away from that ambiguity with that - okay, we like to have set sexualities so we can tell different stories. We can have actual representation. We can tell stories so that they are bisexual stories adjacent to gay stories and straight stories, as well. It's about having all types of people and not needing the ambiguity means we can include having that part of their character.

 

[Terodil]

That was my reaction too. And a big helping of 'WTF?' as well.

IMO he's overcomplicating stuff. If you have a great story to tell that requires your character to have a specific sexual orientation (e.g., Dorian), then great, knock yourself out, I love good stories. But seriously, I went WTF at his comment about Merrill's (possible) bisexuality. So what if she is? It makes no practical difference if she's straight or bi when she's in a stable relationship with a guy. It also makes no practical difference if she's lesbian or bi when she's in a stable relationship with another gal. Suggesting otherwise would do a lot of bi people a big disservice as it would imply they were somehow not able to have a loving, dedicated relationship with their partners.

To me it just seems like PR pandering, a little like that stuff about nature reacting to your actions, keeps being important, etc.. He's talking about that huge impact on storylines, but what do we get? Mediocre storytelling with a lot of gating and very little payoff (well Dorian is great, but the gating for the other NPCs has no payoff whatsoever).

And I don't even want to get into this 'representation' issue, because it is an unnecessary and fundamentally flawed extension of the good idea of inclusion.

Gating without a significant impact on storytelling is just a huge waste of resources.

[AresKeith]

Gating without a significant impact on storytelling is just a huge waste of resources.

 

So a character can't just have a preference?

[BansheeOwnage]

Why did that make you sad? I'm finding it hard to form an opinion on this whole thing so I need to see everyone else's

[Terodil]

So a character can't just have a preference?

What's the point of a character having a preference if you don't use it in your storytelling?

Does a character have to announce "FOLKS, YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE THE COLOUR GREEN RIGHT?!" if it has no anchor in, and no impact on the story?

Sure you can do it, but you should be aware of the opportunity costs. If you have no good reason for gating, you're taking an NPC out of the LI pool for certain PCs, frustrating people who would have liked to romance that LI, and have nothing to show for it.

Waste of resources.

[AresKeith]

What's the point of a character having a preference if you don't use it in your storytelling?

Does a character have to announce "FOLKS, YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE THE COLOUR GREEN RIGHT?!" if it has no anchor in, and no impact on the story?

Sure you can do it, but you should be aware of the opportunity costs. If you have no good reason for gating, you're taking an NPC out of the LI pool, frustrating people who would have liked to romance that LI, and have nothing to show for it.

Waste of resources.

 

It doesn't have to have an impact on storytelling nor is it a waste of resources 

 

Cassandra wants a man, Sera likes women, Iron Bull will have sex with anyone, Solas is only attracted to Elves, etc. A character can have a preference and that's all it needs

 

Players getting frustrated because they romance a character the way they want shouldn't be a major issue to Bioware

[daveliam]

That was my reaction too. And a big helping of 'WTF?' as well.

IMO he's overcomplicating stuff. If you have a great story to tell that requires your character to have a specific sexual orientation (e.g., Dorian), then great, knock yourself out, I love good stories. But seriously, I went WTF at his comment about Merrill's (possible) bisexuality. So what if she is? It makes no practical difference if she's straight or bi when she's in a stable relationship with a guy. It also makes no practical difference if she's lesbian or bi when she's in a stable relationship with another gal. Suggesting otherwise would do a lot of bi people a big disservice as it would imply they were somehow not able to have a loving, dedicated relationship with their partners.

To me it just seems like PR pandering, a little like that stuff about nature reacting to your actions, keeps being important, etc.. He's talking about that huge impact on storylines, but what do we get? Mediocre storytelling with a lot of gating and very little payoff (well Dorian is great, but the gating for the other NPCs has no payoff whatsoever).

And I don't even want to get into this 'representation' issue, because it is an unnecessary and fundamentally flawed extension of the good idea of inclusion.

Gating without a significant impact on storytelling is just a huge waste of resources.

 

Interesting.  That's not at all how I read Gaider's comments.  I didn't see him comments as a slight on bisexuality at all.  I saw him as saying that they compromised by making them all bisexual when that wouldn't have been the direction that they would have gone with more resources for romances.  And that compromise didn't sit well with him.  He wasn't interested in having four bisexual characters because he prefers to have a variety of sexualities represented in the LI stories, but that was the only way that they could give everyone at least two choices. 

 

It's not at all saying that bisexuals aren't capable of meaningful relationships or saying that a bisexual woman's relationship with a man needs to be fundamentally different than her relationship with a woman (outside of the fact that all relationships are fundamentally different on account of different people being involved). 

 

I think it comes down to this:

 

• They want to have a variety of sexualities, so in DA: O, they did so.  However, the limited resources meant that gay men and lesbians only got one option each.
• To rectify this, they had all four romances in DA2 be bisexual so that everyone was able to have two romances.  However that wasn't satisfying either because it lacked the variety that they want to represent.
• In DA: I, they were able to increase the budget for romances, which allowed them to have both a variety of sexualities represented as well as providing at least two options for everyone. 

That's really the point. 

[Terodil]

@dave: How does gating (= restriction of options) help variety (= multitude of options)?

I think the issue may be that we're talking about two different kinds of variety and happily mixing them up. Variety 1: NPC variety, whatever makes a character distinct (which can include sexual orientation). Variety 2: Options the player has to define their own PC and their story. These two are fundamentally opposed concepts when it comes to LI gating.

Personally, I strongly prefer having options for my PC (V2) rather than having exhaustively defined NPCs (V1), but this really is the subjective preference of every single player. And of every game developer, of course.

@Ares: Where's the substance of your argument? I see axiomatic statements and a rehashing of DA:I content. "Good talk." I suppose.

[wright1978]

That was my reaction too. And a big helping of 'WTF?' as well.IMO he's overcomplicating stuff. If you have a great story to tell that requires your character to have a specific sexual orientation (e.g., Dorian), then great, knock yourself out, I love good stories. But seriously, I went WTF at his comment about Merrill's (possible) bisexuality. So what if she is? It makes no practical difference if she's straight or bi when she's in a stable relationship with a guy. It also makes no practical difference if she's lesbian or bi when she's in a stable relationship with another gal. Suggesting otherwise would do a lot of bi people a big disservice as it would imply they were somehow not able to have a loving, dedicated relationship with their partners.To me it just seems like PR pandering, a little like that stuff about nature reacting to your actions, keeps being important, etc.. He's talking about that huge impact on storylines, but what do we get? Mediocre storytelling with a lot of gating and very little payoff (well Dorian is great, but the gating for the other NPCs has no payoff whatsoever).And I don't even want to get into this 'representation' issue, because it is an unnecessary and fundamentally flawed extension of the good idea of inclusion.Gating without a significant impact on storytelling is just a huge waste of resources.

Yeah they seem to have deliberately left room for ambiguity and then got upset that people were making use of that room. I don't see the gating as having much pay off and certainly not worth the cost. There other means of telling particular stories with set sexuality within the wider cast.

[chrstnmonks]

Even the 'undercut' option looked horrible, because it was simply untidy, unkempt. I love undercuts usually, they can be darn sexy, but somehow DA:I managed to mess up 90% of the haircuts. The buzzcut was expertly designed though.

I think the undercut one would have looked better if it had been up in a ponytail.