782 réponses à ce sujet

[Larry-3]

I think morality should unlock flirt options. Girls, do you prefer renegades or paragons?

[Wulfram]

Why? The thing that defines the difference between platonic and romantic relationships is sex. The fact that an RPG PC can only be defined to a certain extent, and that dialogue in these "romances" is limited to a few short conversations due to the medium means that it must focus on what is ultimately central to the relationship rather than take up word budget with yet more exposition or buildup (which is what the non romance content is for). Why are people so squeamish about it?

I'm not squeamish, I'm bored. Sex is indeed important to most romantic relationships, but as a narrative element it's not inherently very interesting and many Mass Effect romances place a heavy focus that isn't necessary, which makes the relationships unnecessarily samey.

It's true that the format of the games does place limitations, but the Dragon Age romances for example do better in making it more than just sex. As did ME3 in some cases, though that was in a large part I think because they were able to deal with more or less established relationships.

[9TailsFox]

After seeing the way some guys reacted to getting hit by Kaidan, you'd probably be one of the few that would find it funny.  The way you set it up would be, but there is no hint that Shep and Wrex slept together, unlike FemShep/Javik.  Oh and having zero choice of the matter would not have gone over well at all.   

 

For that to be accurate, It would be like:

 

Wrexa: Shepard. I didn't know that humans were so good at these things without extra organs.

Sheploo: Not another word, Wrexa.

 

That would have gone over like a lead brick.  

 

Cue the loud angry self-affirmed straight guy on the forums: "If I wanted to sleep with Wrexa, I would have done so on my own!  It's bad enough that you kill one of the LIs, make the other cheat, have one only available if you recruited them in the previous game, and never warned me that I accidentally killed the other back in the first game!  Now I get to wake up next to the female Krogan with her implying I was sleeping with her.  All I wanted is a choice to say one way or the other."

 

Cue the rude women: "It was funny!  You really should get over it.  I mean, you got your options and you should have known better than to stay single.  A drunken one-night stand is funny, right?  Trollolol.  Ask BioWare for more romance options next time.  Just don't have more than us.  Everyone knows that guys don't enjoy the romances anyhow."

 

 I have a rather perverted and screwed up sense of humor (one that actually can make people quite upset with me,) so it's not the assumption that "women can't take a joke."  Oh and thanks for telling me that about Alpha Protocol, so I can avoid the game.  I don't care if it's male or female, rape is horrible and no one deserves it.   I sure as hell wouldn't have stayed quiet if I was playing AP and found that out.

You should really take chill pill. Actually Alpha protocol is good I like game where you don't need to kill, you can stealth all game and game recognizes if no one see you. And all SIE scene well no one care because she is hot. 

Spoiler

 

And I will never understand this oh fictional character left me think. You know Thane will die. And Solas leaving is same as Morrigan always leaving. Or Divine Cassandra dumping Inquisitor, so what. Character overall arc is more important romance is just side content. As much as I want Morrigan and Warden have happily ever after, i think it's better they not and Morrigan is important for the plot. And Jacob cheating so what all 6 people who romanced him will deal with it.

Well our opinions will be different on Jacob cheating is not problem for me, I don't care Isabela sleep with everyone. I liked Hawke and Isabela open relationship.

[daveliam]

Oh and thanks for telling me that about Alpha Protocol, so I can avoid the game.  I don't care if it's male or female, rape is horrible and no one deserves it.   I sure as hell wouldn't have stayed quiet if I was playing AP and found that out.

 

To be fair, there are a few things you should know here:

 

1.)  You can avoid the scene altogether by not bringing her on this mission;

and

2.)  You can turn her down.  It's implied that would rape him either way, but it doesn't actually happen.  If your reputation with her is low, she won't even try to begin with.  If it's high, the scene commences.  You are tied down; she crawls on top of you; and then you are given a choice:  "No way in hell" or "Might as well".  If you pick the former, she accepts it and no sex occurs.  If you pick the latter, sex commences.  It's questionable, but ultimately consensual sex.  No rape occurs. 

 

Alpha Protocol is a pretty good game.  I, of course, avoided all of the romances since you have to play as a male character and all of the romance options are ladies.  But the game is solid. 

[Natashina]

To be fair, there are a few things you should know here:

 

1.)  You can avoid the scene altogether by not bringing her on this mission;

and

2.)  You can turn her down.  It's implied that would rape him either way, but it doesn't actually happen.  If your reputation with her is low, she won't even try to begin with.  If it's high, the scene commences.  You are tied down; she crawls on top of you; and then you are given a choice:  "No way in hell" or "Might as well".  If you pick the former, she accepts it and no sex occurs.  If you pick the latter, sex commences.  It's questionable, but ultimately consensual sex.  No rape occurs. 

Talis was being his usual charming self and misusing a word because it amuses him.  Thanks for clearing that up.  That sure as hell isn't rape.  That's rough and as you said, maybe a little questionable by some.  It doesn't phase me.  He could say no, or completely avoid the entire thing through the player's own choice.  I wouldn't care if the PC was male or female in that case.  The player could choose yes or no, if they didn't know ahead of time not to bring that other character.  Much different and certainly not the series of increasingly facepalm worthy decisions regarding some of the LIs in both ME and DA.

[dreamgazer]

I think morality should unlock flirt options. Girls, do you prefer renegades or paragons?

Please elaborate further, because I think the last thing this series needs is more rewarding of the bipolar morality.

[Malleficae]

I wish for more sweet romances for girls like Garrus or Cullen BUT I wish for ONE, damned ONE lesbian romance with strong female LI. Morrigan, Cassandra, Jack... All the sweet ladies away from me! With Cassandra they said (if I remember properly) that they don't wanted stereotypical lesbian but they made stereotypical gay with Dorian. Feels so damn unfair.

 

I'm all for less LIs. One hetero, one bi and one homosexual per gender is fine. Or go full bi like in DA2, I would love it. Also, I would prefer less squadmates. DAI gave me too many. It's hard to get to know all 9 characters when half of them is in banters.

 

Btw, can we get alien romances again? Preferably bi, no asari or other race that looks too human. We can't play as alien so at least let us romance them. q.q

 

Ah, and can we get synthetic romance like Joker had? No weird sex scenes, just one human loving that computing power.

[Natashina]

I've read the forums since before DA:I came out and I have never heard once that they made Cassandra straight because she would have been a "stereotypical lesbian."  You're free to tweet David Gaider and ask.  He's the one who wrote her and her romance.

 

So, you mean you want the same amount of LIs that has been common in last couple of DA games, right?  Sure, straight women got more if they rolled the correct race for Solas (elf) and Cullen (human or elf only.)  And straight ladies got one extra in DA2.  Otherwise, lesbians had Merrill and Isabela in DA2 and Sera and Josie in DA:I.  

 

Also, they won't go "full bisexual" again, because they want to represent different sexualities.  It's a stated goal for BioWare.  They only did the bisexual route in DA2 because it was cheaper and easier for a game that had literally a year of development time.  Check the release date for Awakening, then note the release date for DA2.  I'm surprised the game wasn't a helluva lot worse.

 

As far as a really non-human looking romance, I don't think Turians look that human.  There have been requests for a female Turian LI, so a lesbian one would be cool.  Maybe a krogan, but to my dismay I doubt we'll see a lady krogan in ME:A on the ship/space station, much less as a romance.  I'm a huge fan of them too.  I hope I'm wrong, because I liked that part of your "non-human" looking idea.  Unless you want a yahg or hanar or something like that and I doubt the devs want to do that.  Remember they have to animate and frame all of this stuff to look right, even something as mild as kissing.  

 

I'm down with your synthetic suggestion.  There has been that request floating around.  ME has always, to be, been in part about transhumanism, so I don't see why not.  I think a bisexual synthetic LI would be pretty progressive.  It's a sci-fantasy, so why not?  

[Feybrad]

Ah, and can we get synthetic romance like Joker had? No weird sex scenes, just one human loving that computing power.

 

I'm down with your synthetic suggestion.  There has been that request floating around.  ME has always, to be, been in part about transhumanism, so I don't see why not.  I think a bisexual synthetic LI would be pretty progressive.  It's a sci-fantasy, so why not?  

 

Just waiting for QMR to show up now and having this Discussion becoming about the Geth.

 

I'm all for less LIs. One hetero, one bi and one homosexual per gender is fine. Or go full bi like in DA2, I would love it. Also, I would prefer less squadmates. DAI gave me too many. It's hard to get to know all 9 characters when half of them is in banters.

 

Btw, can we get alien romances again? Preferably bi, no asari or other race that looks too human. We can't play as alien so at least let us romance them. q.q

 

I disagree with you on those two Posts. I thought, the basic DA.I 2/2/2 Split was the best Way to handle it. The Bonus Romances we can leave behind, but I think either that or 4 bisexual LI's are necessary to give every Player a Choice of two Love Interests in any Case, which has been repeatedly stated to be BioWare's Goal.

 

I also am not convinced it would be wise to offer up the more alien Races as Love Interests. Garrus is a prime Example - while I loved his Romance to bits, I will always avoid thinking about just how the heck the Intercourse would work for him and FemShep. It was slightly Immersion breaking, actually. And since I also have Problems with Alien Races being too similar to Humans (or actually frecking designed to be hot - looking at you, Asari) I would much rather prefer to have Alien Romances be explicitly sexless if there. Sure, the Ship of not having too human Aliens has sailed, but the "Upside" of that is, that it is at least understandable, why there'd be a sexual Attraction between them and the human Protagonist. If the Race is "too alien" (beginning even with Turians), the Romance should be strictly asexual.

[Sir Froggie]

Since the lead writer for ME:A is the same writer of Halo 4, I would honestly be suprised if they didn't have a synthetic romance.

[Natashina]

 

I also am not convinced it would be wise to offer up the more alien Races as Love Interests. Garrus is a prime Example - while I loved his Romance to bits, I will always avoid thinking about just how the heck the Intercourse would work for him and FemShep. It was slightly Immersion breaking, actually. And since I also have Problems with Alien Races being too similar to Humans (or actually frecking designed to be hot - looking at you, Asari) I would much rather prefer to have Alien Romances be explicitly sexless if there. Sure, the Ship of not having too human Aliens has sailed, but the "Upside" of that is, that it is at least understandable, why there'd be a sexual Attraction between them and the human Protagonist. If the Race is "too alien" (beginning even with Turians), the Romance should be strictly asexual.

With Garrus, I just try not to think about it too much, but I see your point.  

 

 

Since the lead writer for ME:A is the same writer of Halo 4, I would honestly be suprised if they didn't have a synthetic romance.

GLENN/FROG!

 

Sorry, big old school Squaresoft fan.  Here, have a like for your avatar alone.

[Panda]

I'd be fine with that, because unless they are tied to the plot I expect the romances to tell a character story and not to fulfill my personal fantasies. If that character is an asshat (which Jacob totally was judging by his ME2 breakup dialouge), than I don't have a problem with their romance reflecting that. Similarly, if I choose to chase after a guy who is clearly dying, I'm not going to get upset when a deus ex machina doesn't show up and it ends predictably.

Then again, I don't self insert in these games and take personal offense when my decisions result in shitty outcomes, which is I think where the issue lies.

 

I don't see romances as much expansion of the character, I see them more related to protagonist. When I play Bioware's game I want good story for my protagonist, it can be tragic, but it shouldn't have LI's like Jacob who are just badly written off in next game. That's my take anyways.

[Malleficae]

I've read the forums since before DA:I came out and I have never heard once that they made Cassandra straight because she would have been a "stereotypical lesbian."  You're free to tweet David Gaider and ask.  He's the one who wrote her and her romance.

 

Also, they won't go "full bisexual" again, because they want to represent different sexualities.  It's a stated goal for BioWare.  They only did the bisexual route in DA2 because it was cheaper and easier for a game that had literally a year of development time.  Check the release date for Awakening, then note the release date for DA2.  I'm surprised the game wasn't a helluva lot worse.

 

As far as a really non-human looking romance, I don't think Turians look that human.  There have been requests for a female Turian LI, so a lesbian one would be cool.  Maybe a krogan, but to my dismay I doubt we'll see a lady krogan in ME:A on the ship/space station, much less as a romance.  I'm a huge fan of them too.  I hope I'm wrong, because I liked that part of your "non-human" looking idea.  Unless you want a yahg or hanar or something like that and I doubt the devs want to do that.  Remember they have to animate and frame all of this stuff to look right, even something as mild as kissing.  

 

I'm down with your synthetic suggestion.  There has been that request floating around.  ME has always, to be, been in part about transhumanism, so I don't see why not.  I think a bisexual synthetic LI would be pretty progressive.  It's a sci-fantasy, so why not?  

 

DA2 is my favourite game from BioWare but I guess I'm hipster for life since no one else seem to enjoy my game choice.

 

Asari look way too human. Quarians are even more humanish (still hoping they will use quarians from concept arts and Tali was photoshop for Shep). Turians are fine choice, especially turian lady. I agree about animation problems with the weirdest aliens but not all romances need to involve kisses and sex, we could get romantic relationship without all touching. Also, where is my salarian and krogan LI?! :/

 

Indeed. Also, engineer could have some more content for this romance and that would be great!

 

Just waiting for QMR to show up now and having this Discussion becoming about the Geth.

 

 

I disagree with you on those two Posts. I thought, the basic DA.I 2/2/2 Split was the best Way to handle it. The Bonus Romances we can leave behind, but I think either that or 4 bisexual LI's are necessary to give every Player a Choice of two Love Interests in any Case, which has been repeatedly stated to be BioWare's Goal.

 

I also am not convinced it would be wise to offer up the more alien Races as Love Interests. Garrus is a prime Example - while I loved his Romance to bits, I will always avoid thinking about just how the heck the Intercourse would work for him and FemShep. It was slightly Immersion breaking, actually. And since I also have Problems with Alien Races being too similar to Humans (or actually frecking designed to be hot - looking at you, Asari) I would much rather prefer to have Alien Romances be explicitly sexless if there. Sure, the Ship of not having too human Aliens has sailed, but the "Upside" of that is, that it is at least understandable, why there'd be a sexual Attraction between them and the human Protagonist. If the Race is "too alien" (beginning even with Turians), the Romance should be strictly asexual.

 

Well, if you have bisexual character and homosexual character that gives 2 choice for homosexual player. Math.

 

I like that part with Garrus. Awkward - you need some reasons to laugh! We can just get rid of asari romance. I hope asari won't become DA's elves - romance in every game. I don't understand what's problem with attraction. In our world we have people who wear animal masks during sex. We all fancy different things. Only asexual I would want is romance with synthetic because I want to avoid "sex toy".

[Wulfram]

I feel like 6 romances is rather a lot of romances. Particularly if we've only got 7 squadmates, which I understood was the case though now I can't work out if that's official information, from the leaked survey or just a hallucination.

I mean, if you have less I guess you're going to end up leaving someone annoyed, but still.

[Natashina]

 

DA2 is my favourite game from BioWare but I guess I'm hipster for life since no one else seem to enjoy my game choice.

 

Asari look way too human. Quarians are even more humanish (still hoping they will use quarians from concept arts and Tali was photoshop for Shep). Turians are fine choice, especially turian lady. I agree about animation problems with the weirdest aliens but not all romances need to involve kisses and sex, we could get romantic relationship without all touching. Also, where is my salarian and krogan LI?! :/

 

Indeed. Also, engineer could have some more content for this romance and that would be great!

 

 

DA2 is one of my favorite all time BioWare games.  I have more completed Hawkes than Wardens.  I wasn't saying that DA2 was a bad game, only that they have stated that the only reason why all of the LIs were bisexual was due to time and money constraints.  I prefer set sexualities over that method, but I can see where you're coming from.  

 

However, as far as no asari romances, that ship has long since sailed.  They are the elves of ME already.  In fact, they are more like traditional elves than DAs are: Haughty, very long lived, influential, considered very attractive and "exotic", wise, falls due to their own arrogance, very magically biotically powerful.   So they'll probably have at least one asari LI.  

 

I like the race, but I'd prefer to not have an Asari LI because I feel the race has too much focus on their sexual aspects as it is.  Enough with the touchy-feely Asari that are mostly dancers or consorts or barely past teens by their standards (Liara.)  Let's meet some doctors and engineers and scientists already.  Once you've seen one blue butt, you've really seen them all.  I'm not going to be all that upset or surprised though.  <shrug>

[Feybrad]

DA2 is my favourite game from BioWare but I guess I'm hipster for life since no one else seem to enjoy my game choice.

 

Asari look way too human. Quarians are even more humanish (still hoping they will use quarians from concept arts and Tali was photoshop for Shep). Turians are fine choice, especially turian lady. I agree about animation problems with the weirdest aliens but not all romances need to involve kisses and sex, we could get romantic relationship without all touching. Also, where is my salarian and krogan LI?! :/

 

(...)

 

Well, if you have bisexual character and homosexual character that gives 2 choice for homosexual player. Math.

 

I like that part with Garrus. Awkward - you need some reasons to laugh! We can just get rid of asari romance. I hope asari won't become DA's elves - romance in every game. I don't understand what's problem with attraction. In our world we have people who wear animal masks during sex. We all fancy different things. Only asexual I would want is romance with synthetic because I want to avoid "sex toy".

 

I also like DA2 and I know several others who do too. You are not alone.

 

I agree fullheartedly. Asari should quielty be left behind in the Milky Way for all I care, they are far beyond Retcons at this Point and should be quielty discontinued. Quarians can be saved, as that one Picture can easily be retconned and they can be outfitted with a much more Alien Appearance. They still have a humanlike Body Shape, though, meaning that they are the only Alien Race besides Drell (and the Asari *blech*) that could have reasonable sexual Attraction with Humans.

 

That was what I was going for, yes. One Homosexual LI per Gender, One Bisexual LI per Gender, One straight LI per Gender. 6 LIs in the End, a 2/2/2 Split. Maybe we misunderstood each other.

 

Covered Asari further up, but here we disagree. If there is Sex involved in a Relationship, the Body Shapes should be similar enough to allow for it actually happening. Turians, Krogans, Salarians, Volus, Elcor, Vorcha (probably, we didn't see female Vorcha) and Hanar are all too alien to allow for Sex. They must be asexual Romances to preserve Immersion and Logic. I don't think pandering to more specific Fetishes should included in a Game.

[themikefest]

I like DA2. Nothing can beat playing as a sarcastic femHawke

[Panda]

I'd rather have many LI's and squadmates than few. Reason for this is that I very seldom like "main" LI's and squadmates myself and I'm rather convinced that the less there is the more characters I like will be cut. For example ME2 is my favorite ME due to characters it has, the game itself has all my fave characters from the series as squadmates: Thane, Kasumi, Garrus and Legion. If it had less squadmates likely only Garrus would have remained from that group. Same with LI's, I liked Thane most, but I'd assume that Kaidan and Garrus would be prioritized over him. Same with DA side, I liked Zevran most in DAO and he was only LI from that game left out from DAI (well there was wartable mission involving him, but he didn't appear in the game at all unlike others).

 

So the less squadmates and LI's there is, the more anxious I am on will I love any of the characters and will I have any romances I'd like ^^;

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I feel like 6 romances is rather a lot of romances. Particularly if we've only got 7 squadmates, which I understood was the case though now I can't work out if that's official information, from the leaked survey or just a hallucination.

I mean, if you have less I guess you're going to end up leaving someone annoyed, but still.

They could have characters who aren't squadmates be romances too. For example ME3 had Samantha and Steve and DAI had Cullen and Josephine. 

[Sir Froggie]

 

With Garrus, I just try not to think about it too much, but I see your point.  

 

 

GLENN/FROG!

 

Sorry, big old school Squaresoft fan.  Here, have a like for your avatar alone.

 

[Natashina]

They could have characters who aren't squadmates be romances too. For example ME3 had Samantha and Steve and DAI had Cullen and Josephine. 

It helps that the developers gave Cullen and Josie as much dialogue for the romances as the companions had.  I would not be surprised if there was NPC romances in ME:A.  

 

@Orin 

 

 

 

[Brass_Buckles]

I actually don't have problem with LI unavoidable dying or leaving you. It can make great story and great tragedy and I liked Thane's romance a lot and was okay the way it ended (though I'd like to have game recognize more that your character is heartbroken after it). However LI dying or leaving you is something that needs to be written with lot of care in my opinion, more so than romance continuing, since it's easy to fail and make player feel horrible and like they chose wrong romance, because of it. Like Jacob's case who left your for anyone woman.. I don't think that made good story and most likely made you recret romancing him in the first place.

 

That's fair, and I don't actually mind these stories existing if the story makes sense.  For Solas in DA:I, it makes sense (we don't know what he's actually up to, but it's clear that to him that is more important than romance--same could be said for Morrigan).  For Thane, it makes a degree of sense, except that there were various hints for a cure for Kepral's, and so many players were triply crushed that they could do absolutely nothing to help him.  For Jacob, there was absolutely zero reason that his romance ended up the way it did.  A breakup is one thing, but knocking up someone else and saying nothing about it until you happen to stumble across him again is quite another.  He could have at least tried to get in touch and let Shepard know that there was someone else.  As it stands, it would appear he had no intention of ever telling her at all.

 

The issue I definitely have with these kinds of stories is that they almost always end up happening to the LIs for female characters (and sometimes gay or bisexual men).  As I said in my initial post, either these stories do need to happen with LIs for male characters, or not at all.  I think some of the stories (Solas, Morrigan) have quite a bit of value, but I also think that the "inevitable unhappy ending" thing is overdone in romances.  So maybe do it less overall, and when it IS done, don't just do it to the ladies.

 

I believe there are two reasons that the sad-ending romance is usually for female PCs.  First, there might be fear of backlash from male players if their LIs are able to actually honest-to-goodness leave them, or worse, die a horrible death.  I'd like to think this is not the main reason because if it is, it says a lot about how much the pain that players of female PCs matters to the writers, and it doesn't look good.  So if "hurting the player" is a concern, then they should do this kind of story less or not at all--it does hurt women and gay men as much as it hurts straight men.  Maybe it doesn't hurt everyone (in fact I am 100% positive it doesn't), but the point still stands.  And furthermore, making the player feel a bit of pain isn't really a bad thing at all--it's a sign that the emotional connection actually worked.  That the writers succeeded.  So why should there be fear of making players of straight male PCs feel something other than sexy or happy?

 

Second, it's basically ingrained in society that it's awful when something bad happens to a woman or a woman breaks up with a man.  And okay, I get that, but it's no less terrible or sad when something terrible happens to a man, or a man leaves a woman (or another man!) for whatever reason.  It's a bit of a double standard.  A woman dying or being injured should not inherently be considered a worse thing than a man dying or being injured, especially within a setting where men and women effectively have equal societal roles.  A man being broken up with should not be inherently considered worse than a woman being broken up with.  Girlfriends aren't property, yo.  They are allowed to ditch you if they decide they don't like you.  Again, if the devs/writers simply can't bring themselves to do this to LIs for male characters, then it needs to happen far less often, or not at all.

 

You want a third reason?  Because I've got one.  At least in the case of Mass Effect, they had so many romances to deal with that they didn't want to continue doing so.  They conveniently forgot that Thane was a romance, despite earlier on having discussed that Thane was actually created with romance in mind.  And also was quite popular on the forums (and I'm sure, elsewhere).  Just because Jacob wasn't terribly popular, they decided to have his romance end in one of the worst possible ways.  And because they forgot about Thane, his romance originally didn't even get recognized as such in ME3, plus all of the buildup they had been working on via lore to possibly curing him was completely dropped.  So, why was it acceptable to choose two LIs for straight women to cut, when this left it entirely possible to start ME3 without any available romance at all for straight female PCs?  Just because a character isn't uber-popular doesn't make it acceptable to treat the fanbase that way, especially when the only part of the fanbase you're actually hurting happens to be those who aren't playing as straight males (yes, I'm aware that many people play cross-gender characters or characters whose orientations that they don't share).

 

I'd prefer, again, to keep these stories (in the case of DA:I's Solas, the story is painful but it's just a good story--can't say the same for Jacob, and I didn't romance Thane so I can't speak for his fans' appreciation or lack thereof).  I don't want to say to BioWare, never do this again!  I don't even want the female PC to stop getting these kinds of story entirely.

 

I repeat, there should not be only one side getting them.  That's why I emphasized this so heavily with bold and italic in the OP. That's especially true when it's done to cut a few romances because there are too many for the devs to handle. There have even been guys who have said they'd like to get the breakups or the more tragic stories--and there are people on both sides who don't, but who will proclaim how great it is that it can happen.  Which is great, unless you're one of those people who only enjoy that in theory until it actually happens to your character with a character you enjoyed interacting with. 

 

But if they can't stop skewing the balance toward straight female PCs/gay PCs to the degree that I feel like I'm navigating a minefield every time I pick a romance, instead of giving everyone some of these stories, I think they should stop them entirely.  It's not about making men suffer, or restricting BioWare's creative license, it's about making things fair.  And if it's a well-written, well-thought-out story, i.e. Solas, or arguably Thane, then I don't see why guys wouldn't want the option to play that kind of story.  It's sad but it's meaningful and gives you something to discuss.

 

Something I'd definitely like to see:  a semi-DA:I approach, where if you behave in certain ways a character disagrees with, they'd either refuse to romance you at all or dump you over it.  And that goes for PCs of both sexes and all orientations.  Just as long as it's not based on someone either being a veritable angel or a moustache-twirling villain, and more on certain basic beliefs/actions over the course of the story.

 

Just waiting for QMR to show up now and having this Discussion becoming about the Geth.

 

 

I disagree with you on those two Posts. I thought, the basic DA.I 2/2/2 Split was the best Way to handle it. The Bonus Romances we can leave behind, but I think either that or 4 bisexual LI's are necessary to give every Player a Choice of two Love Interests in any Case, which has been repeatedly stated to be BioWare's Goal.

 

I also am not convinced it would be wise to offer up the more alien Races as Love Interests. Garrus is a prime Example - while I loved his Romance to bits, I will always avoid thinking about just how the heck the Intercourse would work for him and FemShep. It was slightly Immersion breaking, actually. And since I also have Problems with Alien Races being too similar to Humans (or actually frecking designed to be hot - looking at you, Asari) I would much rather prefer to have Alien Romances be explicitly sexless if there. Sure, the Ship of not having too human Aliens has sailed, but the "Upside" of that is, that it is at least understandable, why there'd be a sexual Attraction between them and the human Protagonist. If the Race is "too alien" (beginning even with Turians), the Romance should be strictly asexual.

 

The reason I suggested "at least one" in my OP for each on gay/lesbian was A) I do think there should be more options unless there are just that few characters that no one gets more than one possible romance regardless of orientation, and I agree with you that it's important that there be representation.

 

As for alien romances, they're apparently already planned, and I'm okay with it.  Yeah, Garrus and his fellow turians are weirdly built and seem a bit dangerous for a variety of reasons (claws!  HIghly allergenic bodily tissues and fluids!), but evidently he and Shepard were able to figure out some way to make that work out without anyone dying or being severely injured.  We don't know for sure that turians are anatomically similar to humans at all--maybe it seems likely, but we don't know.  It's probably better that we don't know. 

 

BioWare was going for the campy old-school sci-fi feel where most of the aliens you'd interact with were at least superficially similar to humans.  Hence the asari, the traditional "alien space babe," which is precisely why the asari were created (and one of the reasons I'm not a big fan--they could certainly have been more original).  So, it's not that weird to my mind that Garrus and Shepard would be able to be intimate with each other without much problem.  If Mass Effect were a more realistic series, then superficial resemblance or no, neither asari nor turians nor quarians would be able to have sex with a human in anything resembling a "normal" way.  I think the general rule here is "just try to enjoy it and don't overthink it, because it's unrealistic in the first place."

 

That said?  An alien who is fine with an asexual or atypical romance because they're concerned for valid reasons about anatomy would definitely be interesting and arguably more realistic.

 

Hm.  It being possible that the Andromeda mission was sent out prior to the ME3 ending, I wonder if there would be consideration of genetic splicing between the races or at least among individual races, if for no other reason than to ensure a continued broad genetic pool.  It's a weird thought, but if your human (or alien) resources are slim, inbreeding would be a concern.  We don't know precisely how many people there are, but with people of various races involved, there would be a limited number of each species.

[Wulfram]

They could have characters who aren't squadmates be romances too. For example ME3 had Samantha and Steve and DAI had Cullen and Josephine.

True, but that still probably leaves 4 LIs, which for smaller squads seems kinda high, especially if you've got non-companion ones going on too. I guess you could have more than 2 non-companion LIs, but I get the impression that they're still considered not the equal of companion LIs by many fans, even if I think they can be good.

[Malleficae]

They could have characters who aren't squadmates be romances too. For example ME3 had Samantha and Steve and DAI had Cullen and Josephine. 

 

I hope it won't be lesbian assistant again. To be honest, I'd prefer squadmates to remain only romances. Cullen and Josie were awesome but they had power, I don't want romances to be lesser than protag. Equality! :v

[Natashina]

I hope it won't be lesbian assistant again. To be honest, I'd prefer squadmates to remain only romances. Cullen and Josie were awesome but they had power, I don't want romances to be lesser than protag. Equality! :v

Sorry, I don't see what you mean here.  I literally can't understand what you're trying to say.  

 

Cullen and Josie were both high ranking members of the Inquisition, yes.  In fact, until Skyhold, they outranked the Inquisitor.  It's been stated in-game that the Inquisition couldn't really function without Josie, Cullen and Leliana.

 

How would that make the romance less than the protagonist?  Is it because Josie and Cullen are NPCs and not companions?  I'm not going to judge you if you feel that way, but I want to make sure that's what you mean.