305 réponses à ce sujet

[Bad King]

I think the reason that the group is diverse is simply because it makes things more interesting: having a wide variety of backgrounds, races and ethnicities represented is better for world building than having everyone from a similar background/ethnicity. It may be exceptional in relation to the population make up of Orlais and Ferelden (mostly white human serfs), but then the Inquisition is an exceptional organisation that draws the best from across Thedas.

[vertigomez]

Pardon my prying, but who are your people specifically?

I don't know about 'my people', but when I said people like me I was referring queer people. But my statement applies to anyone who feels like even fictional universes are desperately trying to sweep their existence under the rug...

[Sable Rhapsody]

I think the reason that the group is diverse is simply because it makes things more interesting: having a wide variety of backgrounds, races and ethnicities represented is better for world building than having everyone from a similar background/ethnicity. It may be exceptional in relation to the population make up of Orlais and Ferelden (mostly white human serfs), but then the Inquisition is an exceptional organisation that draws the best from across Thedas.

 

I think of it like building your team in the new XCOM games.  XCOM is an international organization, and your recruits and NPCs come from all over the world.  Diversity grows out of the organization's nature; it's not a politically correct "agenda" or anything.

[YourFunnyUncle]

As a straight white male I love to see diversity in BioWare games. Why would I want to play as someone just like me again?

[helpthisguyplease]

I hate that there not people modeled after Russian and Balkan people.

[Sah291]

I appreciate the point about not putting in characters just to check off boxes. All characters ultimately should serve the story and have a reason for appearing. This is the same issue with having too many cameos, returning characters, or too much fanservice, etc.

But it's an RPG. One that specifically invites the player to participate in creating their own characters, picking their team, and making choices. People are going to want to make choices and see themselves in characters they can identify with. Whether it is wanting more characters that look like them or more romances of a certian type or more combat classes to choose from or whathaveyou. This is different from a movie or novel, where you might have a story about some fixed protagonist in a specific setting or time period, where the audience is expected to experience the story from the perspective of someone else.

To be honest I do kinda feel like a bit of the magic has been lost with the romances in a way, because they can't be as spontaneous anymore. That is not to say that the romance arcs themselves aren't good. DAI has some of the best in the series. They have gotten better written, more nuanced, and varied. But, at the same time we have a lot of..."Warning! Clicking the heart will initiate romance with X character. Are you sure? Are you doubly sure??" I miss the days where you could unexpectedly stumble into a romance with Leliana or someone just by being nice. I do think some people have gotten offended a little too easily because some character tried flirting with them.

[karushna5]

I get immersion breaking, but that is usually when people don't have a diverse group/ lives. This is a weird thing to bring up, because having diverse friends does not protect someone from being racist/sexist/ homophobic (not saying you are) but it does lend itself to being normal. The random friends I have made over roleplaying? all but one just so happened to be not straight. A dear friend from High school is a Trans Man. The girl and boy who are like siblings to me are from Eygpt and Muslim. My oldest friend is black, as was my first girlfriend who was also Trans. My sister's father is Pakistani meaning she looks way different than I do, and her kids look nothing like her.

 

I am saying this not as a weird badge or whatever, I just mean it doesn't break reality or defy immersion when you are used to it. It was weird to me when so many characters are white in ME because this is the future and just statistics would imply most of the characters should be from South or East Asia. And that is the thing. Characters are more diverse not just for "pandering" (and if it is pandering than acknowledge that 99% of most Sci fi are blatant panderers for making so many people white.) but because it represents a more common truth that more people are experiencing.

 

All white casts with all straight people are a bit immersion breaking for people. The truth is the world has changed and barriers are broken and groups are very likely to be very mixed in their beliefs looks, and attractions. I don't see as how if that is reflected by some shows or games, it is political correctness or pandering.

[Sable Rhapsody]

To be honest I do kinda feel like a bit of the magic has been lost with the romances in a way, because they can't be as spontaneous anymore. That is not to say that the romance arcs themselves aren't good. DAI has some of the best in the series. They have gotten better written, more nuanced, and varied. But, at the same time we have a lot of..."Warning! Clicking the heart will initiate romance with X character. Are you sure? Are you doubly sure??" I miss the days where you could unexpectedly stumble into a romance with Leliana or someone just by being nice. I think do some people have gotten offended a little too easily because some character tried flirting with them.

 

I'm of two minds on this.  On one hand, variety is the spice of life.  It would be nice for NPCs to have different approaches toward romance rather than all waiting for the PC to initiate.  On the other hand, implementation makes or breaks romance, and IMO having NPCs initiate romance was kind of a crapshoot.  For example, turning down Anders (even if you'd never shown any romantic interest) always netted rivalry points and came off a bit harsh.  Which is sort of...WTF?  Anders and Hawke are adults, not high schoolers.  Or Kaidan, claiming that you were sending him "mixed signals" when all you'd done was be polite.  Not even friendly, just basic professional courtesy.

 

I wouldn't mind NPCs initiating romance, I just think it has to make more sense than it has in the past.  And between doing it clumsily and not doing it at all, I'd rather not have it.  

[Andrew Lucas]

Tbh, diversity is something that never comes to my mind regarding immersion...my Dragon Age immersion doesn't rely on that.

[Heimdall]

I get immersion breaking, but that is usually when people don't have a diverse group/ lives. This is a weird thing to bring up, because having diverse friends does not protect someone from being racist/sexist/ homophobic (not saying you are) but it does lend itself to being normal. The random friends I have made over roleplaying? all but one just so happened to be not straight. A dear friend from High school is a Trans Man. The girl and boy who are like siblings to me are from Eygpt and Muslim. My oldest friend is black, as was my first girlfriend who was also Trans. My sister's father is Pakistani meaning she looks way different than I do, and her kids look nothing like her.

 

I am saying this not as a weird badge or whatever, I just mean it doesn't break reality or defy immersion when you are used to it. It was weird to me when so many characters are white in ME because this is the future and just statistics would imply most of the characters should be from South or East Asia. And that is the thing. Characters are more diverse not just for "pandering" (and if it is pandering than acknowledge that 99% of most Sci fi are blatant panderers for making so many people white.) but because it represents a more common truth that more people are experiencing.

 

All white casts with all straight people are a bit immersion breaking for people. The truth is the world has changed and barriers are broken and groups are very likely to be very mixed in their beliefs looks, and attractions. I don't see as how if that is reflected by some shows or games, it is political correctness or pandering.

I agree with the sentiment, (Though maybe there could be a vastly increased white demographic in the far future, you never know, I think Bioware is banking on Canadians starting colonies on other planets first) but European fantasy settings are a somewhat different matter.  Such settings have their roots in northern European myths and folklore (Mostly Germanic with some Celtic influence) and history.  Thus the settings tend to reflect the demographics of the cultures the genre originates from.

 

And frankly a lot of white people like seeing those settings hold consistent with that origin because their heritage is the origin.  I don't think that's an inherently bad desire, I would certainly never complain about the lack of diversity in Jade Empire where the only white character is a cartoonish imperialist parody voiced by John Cleese (Why would I?  He's hysterical).  That's not to say I think racial diversity is bad, or shouldn't be in Thedas, just that not everything needs to be diverse.  I approve of diversity on a macro scale, I think entertainment in general needs to be more inclusive, more games need to feature racial and ethnic minorities, homosexuals, transexuals, and others, but not all games.

 

So its good that Bioware is attempting to be inclusive, as the trend needs to start somewhere, I'd only caution a more understanding attitude toward people who feel like they're being told a setting being populated mostly by people like them is a bad thing.  That's not to say they're right in thinking that's what's happening, they're thinking on the micro scale, they want to play a game reflective of their experience (For many of them, that means a predominately white and heterosexual environment) and some take offense because they feel that experience itself is being maligned.  They take the issue in isolation rather than in the context of the wider dominance of such environments in media.

 

As to the issue of diversity feeling "artificial" and "immersion breaking", well, sometimes it can be.  I recall a Zero Punctuation episode where Yahtzee referred to the cast of battlefield hardline (I think that was the game) as a "human color gradient", because each and every member of the team was of a different racial and/or ethnic background.  Such a thing feels artificial because it seems highly unlikely such a perfectly balanced diversity could occur just by chance.  In reality, people that are alike and have had similar life experiences tend to be drawn to one another because people bond over what they have in common, not what makes them different.  Again, not saying such a perfectly diverse group can't happen, just that it comes across as very obviously deliberate in a piece of media rather than something that happened naturally (Unless handled very carefully).  DA2 was criticized by some on this basis for the apparent bisexuality of almost all the companions.  Bisexuality being relatively rare as sexual orientations go, it seemed highly improbable to many players that this fairly random assortment of people Hawke just happened to stumble across was almost entirely bisexual.  It can happen, but it felt extremely convenient and broke some people's immersion.  Granted, part of the issue was that the sexuality of the romances in DA2 felt oddly detached from the characters themselves, where in DAI it was better done and sexuality was integrated as an integral part of the characters, most notably in Dorian and the Iron Bull.

 

I don't think "artificial diversity" is a problem in DAI.  The cast is fairly diverse, but all the characters have a pretty well justified reason to be there, except maybe Sera but that fits her character.  She doesn't need much of a reason to do stuff before she does it.

 

^Just my thoughts on the issue, not strictly a response to the above poster.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

First of all I never said diversity is a weakness. I said that such diversity being unlikely as it is weakens the immersion factor of the story.

 

I don't mind diversity in the game what I'm saying is the way they implemented it was weak and too blatantly aimed at political correctness. It didn't add anything to the story for me.

 

It's like that film  that came out fantastic 4 (the latest one) that was a complete disappointment. Not only were the characters intentionally way too young (I don't know how to say "jeunisme" in english sorry) clearly with the aim of making a younger audience adhere more to the film. But they made the torch a black guy when anyone who knows the characters know that not only is he not black but he is also the invisible woman's brother.... I mean come on if they had to add a black character they could have put a normal human character that supports the fantastic 4 and plays an important role but no they decide to change one of the main characters that simply cannot be a black guy. They did the same with Jimmy allen in that supergirl tv series and I really liked the shy yet passionate irish guy too. Now it's a tall suave black guy presumably to satisfy the female audience...

 

Do you see what I mean? I can just imagine the marketers telling the writer put in an homosexual, put in a black guy, put in a qunari. IMHO the writer should only put a character if they come up with a good idea for that character not because it will be politically correct and pleasing to this or that audience.

 

There are very real and diverse groups of people in the world working towards a shared goal there are black environmentalists that are just as passionate stopping climate change as white environmentalists.

 

As I understand it (I've not seen the movie) in the most recent Fantastic Four movie Johnny and Sue were multiethnic themselves and from the trailers and reviews that I have seen about it with the Storm's father being portrayed as a bi-racial man himself (or one of them was adopted or they were actually step-siblings all of which does happen in real life). It's also worth noting that last pair of actors who Johnny Storm and Sue Storm were Chris Evans who is white and Jessica Alba who is a latino. 

 

According to David Gaider that if any of the suits at EA had a problem with the sexuality and/or the diversity of the characters all they could have stopped it any time in development. Look EA has a very bad rep and not without good reason but putting out a game with a diverse cast of characters is not them being "caving into political correctness" it's them trying to get some good PR for a change and using it to make a profit. That is called capitalism. I don't think most execs of large multinational companies give much of a damn about social awareness unless it hurts sales of their products or they are so bigoted that care if their company goes out of business. Again that is capitalism. If the game was a financial bomb just because of LGBT characters in it then it's pretty they wouldn't allow BioWare to put any more LGBT characters in ME:A or DA4.  

 

And as others has pointed out BioWare has pretty much always been a left of center in terms of their overall political leanings so the fact that have more bisexual characters than just about any other game development company in history and they are starting to add 100% gay and lesbian romances (lets be honest ME3's Traynor and Cortez, and DA:I's Sera and Dorian are the first openly gay and lesbian BW characters all the others were bisexual) and I wouldn't be surprised if see them start hinting at transgender romances down the road as well. The fact is that BioWare has pretty much been leading the LGBT movement in games long before other companies like Lionhead, Bethesda, Dontnod, Square-Enix and others joined in.  

[Jedi Comedian]

I'm not exactly against inclusion, but I wouldn't mind to see a gay KISA (Dorian and Bull do not count).

[Sah291]

I'm of two minds on this.  On one hand, variety is the spice of life.  It would be nice for NPCs to have different approaches toward romance rather than all waiting for the PC to initiate.  On the other hand, implementation makes or breaks romance, and IMO having NPCs initiate romance was kind of a crapshoot.  For example, turning down Anders (even if you'd never shown any romantic interest) always netted rivalry points and came off a bit harsh.  Which is sort of...WTF?  Anders and Hawke are adults, not high schoolers.  Or Kaidan, claiming that you were sending him "mixed signals" when all you'd done was be polite.  Not even friendly, just basic professional courtesy.
 
I wouldn't mind NPCs initiating romance, I just think it has to make more sense than it has in the past.  And between doing it clumsily and not doing it at all, I'd rather not have it.

To be fair, I know the devs were trying to experiment with an approval system where rivalry wasn't necessarily a bad thing... and getting disapproval for breaking up, or blocking a romance path for being rude isn't new, but I agree that was one of the examples where it was handled clumsily and people were offended for all sorts of reasons. It didn't help there was no way to let him down nicely and it was right in the first dialogue after recruiting him. But still, it seemed natural for his character to be forward like that, and crushed after rejection, anyway.

I guess all the extra warning messages and having to always initiate lessens some of the magic for me, because I feel like it is showing too much behind the curtian, if you get what mean. I'd rather risk being a little surprised or caught off guard by a character I didn't like. Or maybe the character grows on you when you don't expect it.

[nightscrawl]

What bothers me is both how unlikely such a group of people assembling together is.

So? The whole damn scenario is unlikely, down to the fact of your character from whatever background becoming Inquisitor, and this is the thing that bothers you?

[nightscrawl]

I'm of two minds on this.  On one hand, variety is the spice of life.  It would be nice for NPCs to have different approaches toward romance rather than all waiting for the PC to initiate.  On the other hand, implementation makes or breaks romance, and IMO having NPCs initiate romance was kind of a crapshoot.  For example, turning down Anders (even if you'd never shown any romantic interest) always netted rivalry points and came off a bit harsh.  Which is sort of...WTF?  Anders and Hawke are adults, not high schoolers.  Or Kaidan, claiming that you were sending him "mixed signals" when all you'd done was be polite.  Not even friendly, just basic professional courtesy.
 
I wouldn't mind NPCs initiating romance, I just think it has to make more sense than it has in the past.  And between doing it clumsily and not doing it at all, I'd rather not have it.

You can get around that by taking the purple option in that scene so you avoid being hit on, but it leads to further rivalry points anyway because of mage issues. However, I would rather get the points from that then deal with the come-on, or force my character to be an ass. I think it's worse for a female character actually. We only just met and he throws out that line about hurting fem Hawke and whatnot, and of course the guys don't get that... But that's a rant for another thread.

 

As for variety, other people can chime in with their DAI romances as I've only done done Dorian and Cullen, but I found the various paths with Dorian to be quite refreshing. You can initiate the first kiss, or Dorian can; you can do zero flirting and basically "come out" during the tavern cinematic, which is a surprise for him, or flirt all along; you can turn down sex, or accept his proposition; you can have a more serious tone about the whole thing, or a fun one. There is a great variety of RP options with him all throughout.

At any rate, I agree 100% with your last point. To my knowledge, all of the NPC rejections in DAI were done well, with the person simply saying that they weren't interested and not being an ass about it. I'm only familiar with flirting with Cullen and Dorian, but I also thought that the initial flirts were so subtle as to barely be flirts at all, leading to more obvious ones later on. It was pretty great.

 

I don't mind the NPC initiating if it's a part of their personality, but I want the option to turn them down nicely, or to just ignore it. You don't have to outright reject someone, you can also just ignore a flirt -- "So, how about them Venatori?" But I also do NOT want the option to go anywhere. I want to be 100% sure of my intention when I click a line that is meant to be a flirt. I got ninjamanced by Leliana once in DAO simply because I was being all girly about certain things. It was quite a bummer. I don't really care if that's realistic and that you can't control how others react, it still sucked to unintentionally lead someone on.

[Heimdall]

Sera has the best rejection for male inquisitors imo

"Too much in common"

[Yumakooma]

I don't really care about the race of the characters or gender, men and women share the power equally pretty much on DA and as well as that, all the races have characters of some significance or power so they are likely to want to be involved in all games so far, given the plots are related to big world-changing events... most would want to be involved if capable.

 

Cole was kind of hard to grasp and understand until after I finished the game but I don't think he was added for political correctness or diversity, I don't think people would have cared if we didn't have a companion who was actually a spirit/demon (something that has happened in all the games now to an extent though with Kristoff/Anders hosting Justice).

 

Vivienne was one of my favourite characters and I don't really think there are enough black characters, so maybe this was one they added in to make up numbers (not sure how much bioware ponder skin colour), but they were one of my favourite followers for how well their personality was crafted... not many of the followers made such strong feelings as Vivienne. I don't believe they were added for political correctness, but because she was a wonderful idea.

 

I guess its kind of hard to see the need for the large variety in sexuality through the game if you aren't too familiar with the community and type of people who enjoy bioware games the most, but if you look a bit deeper you can see its popular. I think if they lessened the amount of variety and had no bisexual or homosexual characters then it would upset certain portions of the playerbase and I don't think Bioware want to do that, lol. For me personally, I don't care much for the romances in dragon age... as long as the option to avoid them exists its fine. I think the majority of players have spoken on that aspect and seem to like it. Even if we don't all find it interesting or unique or attractive in the slightest way, thats okay, we don't have to delve far into it

[Tidus]

The only thing that  upset me was when Bio Ware gave poor Tidus a sex change operation.. He romanced Leliana in DA:O and now Leliana calls him a she. No wonder poor Tidus turned into the biggest drunk in Denerim..

 

[AlanC9]

As to the issue of diversity feeling "artificial" and "immersion breaking", well, sometimes it can be.  I recall a Zero Punctuation episode where Yahtzee referred to the cast of battlefield hardline (I think that was the game) as a "human color gradient", because each and every member of the team was of a different racial and/or ethnic background.  Such a thing feels artificial because it seems highly unlikely such a perfectly balanced diversity could occur just by chance.  In reality, people that are alike and have had similar life experiences tend to be drawn to one another because people bond over what they have in common, not what makes them different.  Again, not saying such a perfectly diverse group can't happen, just that it comes across as very obviously deliberate in a piece of media rather than something that happened naturally (Unless handled very carefully).

Note that this approach has been around forever. Any Hollywood WW2 picture will have guys from all different ethnicities and regional backgrounds in the platoon. The films don't come across as trying for diversity in 2015 since nowadays we see all white people as pretty much the same anyway, but it was diverse for the time, and by deliberate design. As diverse as they could be with the blacks in segregated units; the Japanese-Americans too, if they weren't still in internment camps.

[AedanStarfang]

Immersion really? Did we morph into the Skyrim nexus forums all of sudden? I didn't even think that the DA games had the kind of atmosphere where you could immerse yourself, rather than just an interactive movie where you could make a few choices from time to time. 

 

 

I don't think diversity has done anything wrong for the series, I am/was a bit annoyed at how the game shoved Krem's orientation in your (the player's face) and when you take the bait and ask about you get royally ripped to shreds for commenting/asking about it (which if Bioware weren't lazy they could have used it as an opportunity to actually you know educate others about real-world transgender issues rather than cry "transphobic/sexist!" and shut you down for inquiring) so I usually just ignore/avoid that part from now on. 

[Abyss108]

Having a few gay characters is unbelievable but exactly 9 characters who conveniently fit into each of the 9 classes doesn't defy the laws of probabillity?

[Iakus]

Having a few gay characters is unbelievable but exactly 9 characters who conveniently fit into each of the 9 classes doesn't defy the laws of probabillity?

Not nearly as much as Cassandra having Templar powers when she's a Seeker 

[helpthisguyplease]

Not nearly as much as Cassandra having Templar powers when she's a Seeker 

Wait they do have templar powers at a even bigger extent. You know how templars can suppress mage magic well seekers can do the same thing and supress templar magic.

[Iakus]

Wait they do have templar powers at a even bigger extent. You know how templars can suppress mage magic well seekers can do the same thing and supress templar magic.

Nope.  Templars suppress magic.  Seekers do not.  They are immune to blood magic and possession, though.  And can manipulate lyrium in people's blood (such as Templars and mages) causing them debilitating pain, and possibly killing them if the Seeker is strong enough

[helpthisguyplease]

Nope.  Templars suppress magic.  Seekers do not.  They are immune to blood magic and possession, though.  And can manipulate lyrium in people's blood (such as Templars and mages) causing them debilitating pain, and possibly killing them if the Seeker is strong enough

Are not templars able to do the same thing?http://dragonage.wik...i/Templar_Order

Look at the abilities category.